Since the financial crisis of 2008, the governance and conduct of financial services firms has been under increasing scrutiny.

Within financial services firms specifically, these pressures are amplified through:

  • Changing regulatory agendas and rapidly emerging business risks;
  • Difficulties in attracting and retaining deep knowledge and specialist skills and the increase in recruitment costs this brings;
  • Ensuring Second and Third Lines of Defence monitoring, testing and QA plans continuously align themselves to the ever-changing business risk profile;
  • Demands to improve insight and efficiency by leveraging technological advances; and
  • Pressure to constantly prove the value of Risk, Compliance and Internal Audit functions.

Second and Third Lines of Defence functions are therefore required to employ a skilled, scalable pool of resource, ready and flexible to meet this plethora of challenges. As a result, firms must have access to a diverse range of skillsets capable of providing independent assurance across numerous subject matters, including:

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However, building and supporting a specialist in-house team capable of delivering the level of assurance and insight required may not be feasible or cost effective for many organisations.

Our Services

  • Regulatory compliance horizon scanning
  • Risk assessments (with methodology and scoring design)
  • Framework and policy development and reviews
  • Central Bank of Ireland - mandated independent reviews
  • Risk Mitigation Programme remediation
  • Training (awareness and operational)
  • Risk and Compliance assurance testing

Why Grant Thornton

Our dedicated GRC team is comprised of former regulators, industry practitioners and regulatory consultants who have first-hand experience working through complex challenges across the financial services industry.

We can support your Second and Third Lines of Defence functions through the provision of tailored, flexible and cost-effective solutions that provide access to industry best-practice methodology, value-add insights and subject matter experts.