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To discuss the scope and limits of the compliance department's responsibilities in securities firms.

Describes the background to establishing stand‐alone compliance departments; the organizational structure of compliance departments; typical compliance functions; how the compliance department coordinates with business units, senior management, internal audit, and risk management; the distinction between a firm's responsibility to comply with applicable laws and regulations and the role of the compliance department; the distinctions between responsibilities of the compliance department and those of supervisors and senior management; and emerging regulatory trends impacting the compliance department.

New business activities and new regulations have placed increased demands on, and scrutiny of, compliance activities over the past few years. Regulators are looking to compliance departments to play an increasingly important role in identifying proactively and responding to potential wrongdoing.

Explains the critical importance of a well staffed, experienced, and adequately funded compliance department.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of prolonged investment in one quality improvement method, which are uncertain. The authors aim to examine the extent to which sustained involvement in a quality network over five years led to improved performance against standards, and whether improvement was achieved in areas where service staff could exercise direct control.

A prospective cohort design was used to examine data from 48 UK inpatient child and adolescent mental health units between 2005/2006 and 2009/2010, which had been Quality Network for In-patient CAMHS members for two years. These were selected to remove the initial marked increase in compliance identified in an earlier study. The main outcome measure was compliance with organisation process standards.

Units meeting “excellent” quality status across all standards rose from seven (14.6 per cent) to 18 (37.5 per cent). Standards for Environment and Facilities and Access, Admission and Discharge improved the most. Units meeting the “excellent” quality status for criteria over which staff had direct control criteria rose from 17 (35.4 per cent) to 29 (60.4 per cent) over the five-year period. The unit modal quality status categorisation for criteria where staff had no direct control in 2005/2006 was “poor” (n=25; 52.1 per cent) but had progressed to “good” in 2009/2010 (n=24; 50.0 per cent).

The authors provide evidence that sustained investment in one QI method raises service compliance against standards. Trends showed improvement for direct control standards from “good” to “excellent” levels and improvement for no direct control from “poor” to “good”.

The objective of this paper is to highlight the results of a survey on compliance practices in Italian financial institutions (Italian banks and branches in Italy of foreign banks).

The survey is carried out through a structured questionnaire, arranged into several sections: general information on the definition and framework of compliance risk, organizational structure, reporting, culture, purpose and tasks of the compliance staff, assessment of the compliance staff performance and of the risk. The survey is mainly developed on two issues: organizational and risk assessment implications.

It is found that many survey participants are responding positively to regulation developments, since there is a widespread recognition of compliance as a key element for creating value and improving reputation. It is also found that the Italian banks surveyed, whose compliance activities have been usually performed by internal audit, dedicate less attention to compliance matters in comparison with the branches of foreign banks. The institutions interviewed underline the need to have clear guidelines from supervisory authorities, so that they can achieve an effective and efficient management of compliance risk.

This subject has not been analyzed in depth to date. This paper provides a representative view of the management of compliance risk in Italian banks, thanks to the variety of the issues under observation and the size of the sample.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on changes in the compliance function within major European banks and other financial intermediaries and on the effects of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) implementation.

The four areas of research seek to answer the following questions: Is the positioning of the compliance function “at the top” of the organizational structure? Are the roles attributed to the compliance function, their knowledge and their instruments consistent with their responsibilities? Do the methodologies applied follow a qualitative and/or a quantitative approach? Is the interaction between the compliance function inside and outside the structure appropriate to the goals of compliance? In total, 31 top international groups based in Europe were invited to take part in the research, 16 of them accepted.

The authors observed a resolute adjustment to the regulations in terms of macrostructure and high levels of compliance function competences in investment services and business knowledge, with a low variation. The encouraging news coming out of the results of the research is the confirmation of the presence of a connection between the compliance function and both the system of values and of incentives.

The paper's international sample offers a unique opportunity to highlight the critical areas of the compliance function within international groups, with growing operational complexity in a framework of principle‐based regulation.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Thematic Review of Banking & Insurance sectors conducted by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in 2013 indicated that oversight functions are still inadequate in the areas of compliance, internal audit, board of directors and senior management. The oversight functions refer to the AML/CFT compliance programme, which financial institutions, including Islamic banks, are obliged to execute as a part of mitigating activities against money laundering and terrorist financing. The main purpose of this chapter is to analyse whether there is any improvement in the oversight functions at the Islamic banks in Malaysia since the release of the thematic review report by BNM on 17 September 2014. This research is important as penalty for non-compliance under Section 22 of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUAA) is severe. Section 22 of AMLATFPUAA entails personal responsibility on the compliance officer of an Islamic bank and not the reporting institution as a whole. Qualitative research method via interview is employed to gauge the extent of Islamic banks’ adherence to AML/CFT compliance programme. This chapter is significant as it provides Islamic banks and future researchers with the details of the compliance study as well as the current status of AML/CFT compliance programme within the Islamic banks in Malaysia.

This paper aims to analyze the role of compliance in Italian banking system and to verify its efficiency in terms of protection of stability and credibility of financial institutions, comparing solutions adopted in other European countries.

The research uses a comparative approach by examining the different solutions adopted in other European countries for finding analogies and differences between them.

The research has discovered a smaller development of Compliance Function in Italian banks, whose compliance risk frameworks are often still in an experimental stage rather than in other systems banks.

A uniform model in the structure of financial institutions can be adopted to enforce the effectiveness of national regulations.

To ensure the independence and effectiveness of the Compliance Function, the financial institutions, especially the Italian ones, must pay great attention to the essential elements for good practices, such as a clearly defined apportionment of responsibilities and unambiguous reporting.

The compliance culture must successfully reinforce itself in Italian firms, and for this purpose, it is necessary to persuade senior management that compliance is not a cost that should be minimized.

The Italian regulatory framework concerning the Compliance Function has represented a challenge for the banking industry, which should undergo a reorganization process focused on a different way of allocating responsibilities, so different solutions to the problem can be found by national legislators who need to be coordinated at an international level.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the Lebanese anti-money laundering (AML) paradigm in light of banking secrecy law. The phenomenon of money laundering that was first associated with the crime of drug trafficking developed a lot since the early 1900s to become a major threat to the world’s economy today. The fight against this ever-growing crime, with multiple sources and origins, has been the centre of attention of the biggest countries in the world. Thus, the need for international AML standards was required, by which countries must abide, to ensure an effective fight against this crime. The issue of banking secrecy regulations was important to study along with the AML framework as the principles of the first totally contradict those of the latter.

The scope of this study first entails a qualitative technique. It will start with analysing existing legal provisions on money laundering and studying the AML framework internationally and in accordance with the Lebanese banking system. For that, websites such as GoogleScholar and HeinOnline were used to collect many scholars articles. Additionally, Laws, Regulations and Directives have been examined for the purpose of establishing the legal basis for the fight against money laundering. Moreover, an interview was conducted in 2018 with the Lebanese Financial Prosecutor, which served as data related to the operations of the Special Investigation Commission (SIC) in Lebanon, which is the Lebanese Financial Intelligence Unit. Second, quantitative research has been done. Reports of the Association of Banks in Lebanon, Financial Action Task Force Report and Annual Reports of the SIC of Lebanon have been used to gather information related to the AML/combating the financing of terrorism framework, such as customer due to diligence provisions and know-your-customer requirements and to collect statistics of suspicious reports.

The question of “How to balance the confidentiality of the Lebanese banking sector with the interest of the international community in the fight against money laundering?” was interesting to study, as it turned out that the existence of such professional secrecy does not affect the effective implementation of the AML guidelines by banks and other financial institutions. This can only happen when there is a special judicial organ to which banking secrecy is not opposable at any time, and which is the sole organ entrusted with lifting off this professional secrecy and allowing the disclosure of information to the competent authorities. Thus, the Lebanese banking system can ensure total compliance with the AML framework while still adopting banking secrecy regulations.

The choice of Lebanon was compelling because of the special level of protection its banking secrecy law offers.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance and Shariah non-compliant risk (SNCR) that is unique for Islamic banks. The study examines the roles of Shariah committee along with the board of directors in mitigating SNCR.

The paper empirically investigates the implications of characteristics of board of directors and Shariah committee on the SNCR by using a sample of 29 full-fledge Islamic banks from Malaysia and Indonesia over the period 2007-2017. All data is hand collected from the Islamic banks' annual reports with the exception of country-level data collected from the World Bank database.

The results show that banks with a smaller board size and higher proportion of independent board members are likely to have lower SNCR. The findings also indicate that the financial expertise and higher frequency of Shariah committee meetings reduces the SNCR. Collectively, the analysis shows that banks with strong corporate governance environments reduce SNCR.

The findings of the study shed light on the relationship between corporate governance practice, Shariah committee characteristics and SNCR. The results can be used by different stakeholders such as policymakers, boards of directors and senior management of Islamic banks to mitigate SNCR.

This study extends the literature on corporate governance and risk-taking by including additional dimensions of governance and risk type. The corporate governance mechanism at the board level is complemented by including the Shariah committee characteristics and SNCR which is relevant to Islamic financial institutions is examined.

This paper aims to recommend a framework that serves as a practical work tool for conducting risk-based Shari’ah audit (RBSA) in Islamic financial institutions (IFIs).

Qualitative research method was used through critical in-depth content analysis of documented literature to generate deep insights, further supported with a hypothetical illustrative case study application of the framework on an Islamic bank, aimed at bringing the framework to a practical, near real-life scenario.

A robust RBSA framework has been developed which focuses on Shari’ah non-compliance risks to systematically and practically arrive at a rated opinion on the level of an IFI’s adherence with Shari’ah rules and principles as recommended by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, aimed to safeguard the IFI and promote financial system stability at large.

Practical realities limited the study to the use of a hypothetical case study bank. Future researchers can apply the framework to a real case study of diverse IFIs for effective contextual recalibration in diverse jurisdictions.

This paper aids the development of both internal and external Shari’ah audit practice using the risk-based approach.

The RBSA framework contributes to promoting public trust and confidence in the Islamic finance industry.

This paper has proposed this RBSA framework as a practical work tool for Shari’ah auditors in their engagements and regulators in promoting sound governance and financial system stability. It provides foundation for future researchers in the field.