Posted on by Sheena Gillett

Press Release

WMA Holds 18th Annual Financial Crime Conference

28th January 2016

Over 150 Professionals came together today (28 January) at the Wealth Management Association’s (WMA) 18th annual conference dedicated to Financial Crime.  Delegates heard from experts on a host of issues from Anti-Money Laundering, Tackling Bribery and Corruption, Cybercrime, Market Abuse and Data Protection.

Held at the Guildhall in London, the community had the opportunity to discuss issues affecting both their firms and their clients as new regulations, laws and technologies come into effect.

Attendees also witnessed a live demonstration hack carried out by Ethical Hacker Mustafa Al-Bassam.  Mustafa, ex member of the well-known LulzSec hacker group, demonstrated system vulnerabilities in an attempt to help illustrate issues related to cyber security and to de-mystify how hacks are actually carried out – even using a small piece of code to identify a protected mock password in under 2 seconds.

During his speech he highlighted the need to create a cultural shift in people’s behaviour and encourage increased awareness of the capabilities of the digital world, he said:

“Once you understand the risks, you can better protect yourself.  Social engineering is a big risk – while Cybercrime is often seen as a technical issue it is truly a human to human problem”.

Commenting on the day WMA Chief Executive Liz Field said:

“Today has highlighted a vast array of important topics to our industry, from protection against fraud, effective training of staff, to the implementation of the raft of upcoming policy. It also provided an important platform for members to hear from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the City of London Police on how they are dealing with threats to the UK’s financial services industry. The agencies want even more engagement with the wealth management industry and WMA will continue working closely with them and wealth management firms to tackle financial crime and help protect clients”.

-ENDS-

Notes for Editors

About the Wealth Management Association (WMA)

  • The Wealth Management Association (WMA) is a trade association that represents 186 wealth management firms (full members) and associate members who provide professional services to our full member firms.
  • WMA members firms look after over £670 billion of wealth for over 4 million retail investors.
  •  WMA full members deal in stocks, shares and other financial instruments for individuals, trusts and charities through a range of services spanning execution only, advisory and discretionary fund management.
  • The WMA exists to support its members and their clients in the following ways:
    • To be an advocate for the sector with governments, regulators and the wider financial services community;
    • To influence policy and also decision makers within the wider sector to the benefit of WMA members and their clients;
    • To research and provide definitive information about the sector as required for members and in support of the influencing and advocacy objectives;
    • To be a thought leader, to lead and stimulate debate and make members aware of emerging trends; challenging and provoking change.
    • Facilitating the sharing of good practice, enabling the membership as a whole to benefit from the latest developments affecting the sector as well as providing support to enable them to develop good prescribe and overcome challenges.
  • WMA firms operate across more than 580 sites, employing over 32 000 staff.
  • These firms also run over 5.5 million client portfolios and carry out over 20 million trades a year.

Contact

If you would like further information on this release or other press matters please contact:

www.thewma.co.uk

Switchboard: 020 7448 7100