PIMFA Live Online Training: Understanding CASS: how to spot CASS risks to your business

CASS is an ongoing area of interest for the FCA and we continue to see reminders that firms must regularly review CASS controls to ensure they’re robust and fit for purpose.

September’s Dear CEO letter to wealth management and stockbroking firms set out clearly the regulator’s expectation that firms with permission to hold client money or custody assets must “ensure your firm regularly reviews its client asset arrangements to ensure consumer’s money and custody assets are protected”.

This session will give an overview of the CASS rules, with particular focus on the rules on custody assets and client money.  We will look at what ‘good’ looks like in terms of CASS governance and oversight and equip you to identify the key CASS risks that your firm will need to manage.

Our specialist trainers from Bovill will look at the CASS rules in detail whilst also following a firm case study through the key areas of CASS to look at how the rules might impact a firm and the risks that firms should look out for.  We aim to make the session as interactive as possible and encourage firms to talk about their experiences and ask questions.

We will cover:

What do the rules say, how do firms apply the rules and what risks should you look out for:

• Custody assets
• Client money
• Mandates
• CASS Resolution Packs
• CASS governance and oversight – what does ‘good’ look like?
• CMAR preparation and submission
• CASS audit – appointing your auditor and what to expect

The session will make use of case studies and examples to bring the theory of the CASS rules to life.

This training will equip you with:

• A good understanding of the CASS rules
• The ability to understand what the CASS rules mean for your business
• The ability to identify CASS risks within your business
• The ability to assess whether your CASS controls are robust and fit for purpose
• An understanding of what a good CASS governance model looks like

The course will be useful for anyone with CASS operational responsibilities, including those responsible for running day-to-day CASS processes and those with operational oversight responsibility.

The course will be delivered by:

Nicky Green, Managing Consultant-Bovill

Nicky heads up the client assets compliance offering within Bovill, Nicky has been instrumental in working on CASS S166 skilled person work, health checks and assurance projects. She has helped companies new to the CASS world build the control processes they need to ensure compliance and has also helped firms to improve their controls as part of remediation projects. Nicky runs the Bovill CASS roundtable and regularly produces thought leadership on CASS matters.

Eoghan Hartigan, CASS expert–Bovill

One of the core CASS experts within Bovill, Eoghan been involved all aspects of CASS work, including CASS S166 projects, setting up new CASS systems and controls for a variety of firms, carrying out CASS reviews and healthchecks and RP testing.