Designing an effective compliance program can be challenging, especially in an ever—evolving regulatory landscape. Ensuring your compliance program functions as planned is a whole other challenge. Do you have the right policies and procedures? Are you following them?

GMAG’s team were leaders in regulation and compliance who know how to design, build and back-test firm surveillances and compliance testing. Let us work with your staff in creating a positive culture of compliance in the following areas:

  • Independent Audits (Assessments)

    Audits are a fact of life, but the key is to be ready for them. GMAG’s team has been the SEC and FINRA appointed independent auditor for disciplinary violations and have conducted risk assessments for clients. GMAG can conduct mock audits in preparation for when they really count. We can also advise you on how to strengthen your policies and procedures to avoid pitfalls during the actual audit. And we can help build remediation plans to address audit reports and respond quickly and efficiently.

  • Policy & Procedures

    Our team members have written working supervisory procedures and policies for some of the most regulated firms on Wall Street. Our team members have also written the examination scopes relied on when conducting audits. We have the depth of experience to prepare methodologies that the lead regulatory groups are looking for – because our consultants have worked on both sides of an audit.

  • Regulatory Interface

    GMAG’s professionals have relationships with regulators both in New York and Washington D.C. and understand how to translate a regulators concerns to your firm. Too many times we have heard that “things went really well” with a regulator only to find that the firm missed the nuances conveyed by the regulator.

  • Data Governance

    Too often overlooked, data governance is fast becoming the only way to make sure that your firm’s data is protected, maximized, and stored in ways that give you the most flexibility in a secure way. Our consultants have decades of experience in dealing with governance issues in dealing with firm data requirements.

  • Compliance & Surveillance Efficacy

    One of the most important factors in building a successful compliance program is to have effective and cost-efficient strategies to manage compliance throughout a firm. Our team has developed compliance programs at broker dealers, U.S Regulators and Exchanges. GMAG will help develop the correct technology for your firm’s compliance program, resulting in a heighten level of operational efficiency and effective oversight.

REGULATORY & COMPLIANCE ADVICE

How We’ve Helped Our Clients

A large broker-dealer retained GMAG to provide expert compliance advice and assistance in connection with regulatory inquiries/responses related to Regulation NMS Rule 607, best execution, payment-for-order flow, and other regulatory concerns.

GMAG provides ongoing compliance advice and has helped the firm with its FINRA and NYSE regulatory filings, updating its policies and procedures and providing general compliance advice.

A high frequency trading firm engaged GMAG to perform a review of the design and functionality of their order marking system and the written supervisory procedures. The review included sample testing of the algorithmic order marking program and surveillance systems.

GMAG was retained by a research firm to perform an assessment of the research reports distributed to their clients. The review included an analysis of the disclosures statements and drafting new disclaimer language for inclusion in each report.