Head of Compliance & MLRO : Case Study

Kind Consultancy was approached by an international investment fund active in multiple locations across Europe and North America. Previously, their UK operation had completely outsourced its Compliance function. They were looking to expand their UK base, including creating an in-house Compliance team, beginning with a Head of Compliance and an MLRO.

Working on an exclusive, retained basis, we helped our client to build the job brief, incorporating our knowledge of the current Compliance and Financial Crime landscape in the UK. We then conducted a detailed search and market mapping exercise using a mix of methodology. Our team reached out to people in our existing network who we knew had the specialist skill set our client was looking for. Next, we identified passive candidates we believed would be perfect for the role and made confidential approaches.

Our final shortlist contained only the very best senior Compliance and Financial Crime professionals who had the expertise to take on strategic, leadership roles in a new department. We focused on individuals who had previously held SMF16 and SMF17 functions, or who were of a calibre that we trusted to be ready to step into an FCA-approved role. We also were careful to pre-screen any candidate on the shortlist to consider their personality and culture fit within our client’s existing senior team, making sure their long-term career goals were aligned with the business’s plans.

After interviewing our candidates, the client successfully appointed their preferred candidate and was extremely happy with the quality of people provided. We’ve remained close to both the Head of Compliance and MLRO post placement and have subsequently provided them with more junior staff to build out their new teams.

Want to learn more about how Kind Consultancy helps clients across Financial Services and Banking? Check out our other Case Studies.

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Mortgage Operations – Case Study

In our Case Study series, we walk through the methods we’ve recently used to help a client, each one giving you some insight into the variety of tailored approaches we can utilise depending on the circumstances.

The Client

Kind Consultancy worked with a large UK retail bank that was seeing a rapid, ongoing increase in the number of mortgage applications they were receiving, at a rate that was overwhelming their permanent Mortgage Operations staff. They reached back out to Kind Consultancy following our previous work with them on select specialist positions, asking us to supply a full team of Contract Mortgage Administrators.

The Approach

We quickly filtered through our substantial portfolio of candidates to select only the most relevant Financial Service Administration professionals. Due to our close ongoing working relationship with our candidates we were able to rapidly select only those we knew had the necessary Mortgage Operations experience, administration skills and industry knowledge, and who had worked contracts on comparable rates and levels of seniority.

The Result

We had a shortlist of CVs to the client within 2 working days of receiving the initial request. This enabled the client to begin telephone interviews within the same week and as we maintain up to date screening information on all of our contractors, they could be on-site much faster than in traditional recruitment timeframes.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn about the different ways we help our clients achieve success]

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AML – International Client : Case Study

In our Case Study series, we walk you through the methods we’ve recently used with one of our clients, to give you a glimpse at just some of the carefully tailored approaches Kind Consultancy can use to suit the specific needs of the organisations we work with. This week, we take a look at an international case.

The Client

As well as clients across the UK, Kind have also helped international clients with their AML needs. Kind Consultancy worked with an international bank who had suffered a serious and well-publicised Compliance and Financial Crime failure. Resultantly they were looking to completely transform their Compliance function and they wanted to tap into the internationally renowned Compliance talent in the UK.

The Approach

We contacted 20 of the very best AML and KYC Analysts and Compliance professionals with Project Management and Transformation experience. They were deployed to the client’s international sites within a matter of weeks and began leading and assisting in the total overhaul of the bank’s Compliance and Financial Crime approaches.

The Result

Our team helped the end client to successfully build and embed new Financial Crime frameworks and develop a much more positive Compliance culture, across multiple countries and regulatory jurisdictions. The bank has kept on some of our staff as permanent members of the Compliance team and has not had another failure since we began supporting them.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn about the different ways we help our clients achieve success]

[Keep up with all of our news including the latest AML opportunities by following us on LinkedIn]

Section 166 – KYC : Case Study

In our Case Study series, we talk you through how Kind Consultancy handled a recent project, to give you a taste of just some of the tailored methods we use to deliver exactly what our clients’ need.

The Client

Kind Consultancy are a long-standing supplier to a Big 4 consultancy. They reached out to us for support on a project with one of their clients, a large retail Financial Services organisation, who had been issued a Section 166 Notice.

The Approach

Kind supplied a team of 10 highly experienced and knowledgeable KYC Analysts who had previously worked with firms who had been issued Section 166 Notices, drawn entirely from the Kind Agile Solutions bench of pre-qualified industry-best contract professionals. Using KAS allowed us to have people with the necessary skills and knowledge on site fast, enabling the client to begin the potentially lengthy review process as soon as possible.

The Result

The team quickly and efficiently worked through a substantial document review project and helped the project leader to identify areas for potential remedial actions. The end client then retained the team to help deliver the necessary changes and improvements, and the regulator decided no further action needed to be taken against the firm.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn more about the different ways in which we have helped our clients to succeed]

[Keep up with all of our news including our latest KYC opportunities by following us on LinkedIn]

BAU Complaints : Case Study

A major Financial Services client was experiencing a backlog of business as usual complaints. As a preferred
supplier to the organisation, an urgent request was made to Kind Consultancy for a large number of
experienced BAU Complaint Handlers who had substantial experience of handling complaints across a wide range
of Financial Services products.

Kind utilised the full Consultancy team, quickly finding the relevant people on the Kind Agile Solutions bench who
had the necessary knowledge and experience, who were verified and background checked and in some cases
had previously worked together on projects, helping to foster a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration
from their very first day with the client.

Having a pre-screened set of contractors with proven BAU Complaints skills and expertise allowed Kind Consultancy to deploy a team the Client was completely confident in within just five working days, thereby trusting Kind Consultancy’s contractors to work on their behalf on customers complaints. The Agile Solutions contractors were successful in clearing the backlog of
complaints and have continued to support the organisation in handling complex complaints from across their customer base.

Read all of our Case Studies here to get a better understanding of how Kind Consultancy works with our clients across a variety of areas.

Interested in a confidential conversation about how Kind Consultancy could assist your organisation? Contact us today.

Motor Finance : Case Study

A fast-growing digital Motor Finance lender had a significant increase in quality complaint volumes. The organisation’s permanent complaint handling team was in its infancy, with the business still in the process of recruiting staff. The time needed to place and train these people, however, meant they needed contract support, on-site and at work fast to keep their complaints within their service level agreement.

The Motor Finance company contacted Kind Consultancy seeking experienced Complaint Handlers with an understanding of the motor industry, who could hit the ground running to immediately attack the volume. Kind Consultancy had a pool of people on the Kind Agile Solutions bench who were pre-qualified and pre-screened complaints professionals; people who the Kind team trusted to deliver high-quality work, who they knew to be available and who could be on-site fast. A total of 10 contractors were deployed and were fully operational with the company within 10 working days of the request arriving.

The contractors played a key role in significantly reducing the number of complaints and enabled the business to take the time to recruit and fully train their permanent complaints staff, with two of the Agile Solutions team joining the organisation on a permanent basis.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn about the different ways we help our clients achieve success]

[To keep up with all our latest news, including new Complaints contract opportunities, follow Kind Consultancy on LinkedIn]

Collections : Case Study

A large, established motor finance company required additional support within their collections team to work with vulnerable customers in relation to their payment plans. Due to an ongoing relationship, the client reached out to Kind Consultancy asking for them to supply experienced interim Collections Consultants for a 12-month project.

Kind selected people from the King Agile Solutions bench who had a mixture of collections experience and complaint handling experience across Financial Services, combined with a history of working with vulnerable customers. The combination required for the project was a very specialised skill set and the client recognised that these are not people they would be able to find on their own quickly. When a second request came after the appropriate members of the Agile Solutions team were already with the client, Kind then conducted a full deep market search using a mix of methodologies to identify key talent that could be utilised in this project, rapidly taking care of all screening and compliance requirements before they joined the client.

Our contractors went through training and route-to-competency with the client and were fully operational and supporting the team within 4 weeks of the first request coming to Kind.  This has resulted in a significant number of customers being contacted and to get the specialised support they needed, whilst maintaining strong customer service for the client.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn about the different ways we help our clients achieve success]

[To keep up with all our latest news, including new Collections contract opportunities, follow Kind Consultancy on LinkedIn]

Payment Holidays : Case Study

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of our longstanding clients was seeing a rapid spike in the number of complaints they were receiving relating to payment holidays. The client recognised that they needed support from experienced complaint handlers who were not from a template-driven PPI background.

Our client reached out to us at Kind Consultancy as we had supported them on previous interim projects. We took the time to ensure we had a thorough understanding of the situation and took a full brief including the specific skills the client needed: a team of 10 complaint handlers with at least 3 years of experience in Mortgage Complaints and Irresponsible Lending Complaints who could respond to vulnerable customers in a meaningful way, including free-writing bespoke response letters. We also understood that this was an urgent project, due to the sudden increase in complaints volume combined with the specialised nature of these new complaints.

Drawing on the Kind Agile Solutions bench of pre-screened professionals, we selected only the Complaints contractors who we knew were properly qualified for this specific project and who we knew were available. Within 24 hours of initially receiving the project request, we submitted our chosen shortlist of candidates to our client for an initial telephone interview. Within 7 days, we had our team of expert interims on-site and working to expectation. The project is currently ongoing and early feedback from our client has been extremely positive.

[Read the full series of Kind Consultancy Case Studies to learn about the different ways we help our clients achieve success]

[To keep up with all our latest news, including new Complaints contract opportunities, follow Kind Consultancy on LinkedIn]

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