The UK's Financial Conduct Authority recently staged a webinar on the subject of how firms should prepare for the Senior Managers & Certification Regime which comes into effect on 9 December.

Lucy Balicki of the City law firm of Laven Partners outlined the main points that the FCA made. They are as follows.

• The FCA will contact your firm within the next two months with its recommendation regarding your SM&CR tier.
• You can 'opt-up' to a more regulated tier which contains firms that want to 'future-proof' their SM&CR policy. Here the FCA held out the hope that this might help their revenues grow faster in the long term than those of firms that did not take this option.
• The FCA says that every firm that wants to follow the SM&CR properly (it used the word 'successfully') will have to view the regime as "a journey, not a destination."
• The goal of the SM&CR is to encourage senior managers to build up a healthy culture at their companies because this leads, on the whole, to far less misconduct.
• Firms that have tweaked existing processes to implement the SM&CR are more likely to succeed than the ones that have tried to evolve new and specific processes.
• The SM&CR should be part of every firm's DNA.

The FCA also has a 'firm checker' package on its website to help your firm find its right tier.

Once the FCA has notified you about your recommended tier, it will be time to write up a list of action points for compliance, to train staff and to draft your statements of responsibility (SORs) and other compliance documents.

* Lucy Balicki can be reached on +44 (0) 207 838 0010 or at SMCRteam@lavenpartners.com