Managing Complex Conflicts of Interest in Financial Services: An Advanced Workshop

Introduction

Conflicts of interest remain one of the most persistent and high risk areas within UK financial services. Despite strong regulatory expectations, many firms still struggle with identifying non obvious conflicts, embedding practical controls and evidencing effective management to the FCA.

This new, advanced virtual classroom session is designed for those who already work with conflicts of interest and want to deepen their capability, sharpen their judgement and strengthen their firm’s governance and control environment.

Through practical discussion and exercises, participants will explore complex case scenarios, recent regulatory developments and common pitfalls that lead to supervisory challenge.

The workshop also provides practical tools and approaches for managing conflicts in day-to-day operations, making it ideal for individuals working in roles such as Compliance Officers, SMFs, Risk Managers, Governance Professionals, Conduct & Culture Leads, Operations Managers, Investment Managers, Financial Advisers, Internal Auditors, Boards Members and NEDs.

On completion of this session, you will be better equipped to identify, assess, escalate and manage conflicts, and to demonstrate compliance in a way that stands up to regulatory scrutiny.

What You Will Learn

This live and interactive course will cover:

• Advanced recognition of conflict risk (recognising subtle, emerging and non traditional conflicts)
• Regulatory expectations (including recent FCA communications)
• Assessing the severity of real and potential conflicts by using a structured framework
• Designing effective controls (governance, practical application and compliance documentation standards)
• Embedding conflict management (integrating conflicts of interest into culture, conduct and decision making)
• Handling practical conflict of interest scenarios (interactive case studies based on common industry challenges)
• Escalation and reporting (when to escalate and how to document)
• Governance and oversight (board responsibilities, SMF accountability and committee oversight)
• The main challenges that firms face when identifying and managing conflicts of interest
• Solutions to problematic areas (gifts & hospitality, personal relationships, remuneration and distribution chains)

Recording of live sessions: Soon after the Learn Live session has taken place you will be able to go back and access the recording - should you wish to revisit the material discussed.