Firm Supervisor – Wealth Management Supervision, Consumer Investments

at  Financial Conduct Authority

Salary:
London from £46,000 to £57,400 (depending on experience)
National from £41,800 to £52,200 (depending on experience)
Are you interested in joining a team focussed on reducing and preventing serious harm to consumers?
We are recruiting for a Firm Supervisor to join us in Wealth Management portfolio supervision to support our work on Consumer Duty with a particular focus on price and value. We have responsibility for supervising over 500 firms with a range of business models including discretionary wealth managers, stockbrokers and outsourced service providers. We are particularly focussed on stopping harm that comes from financial crime, fraud and scams, unsuitable advice, high risk investments and poor value products and services, by ensuring consumer interests are central to the firms within the sector.

You will be part of the Advisers, Wealth & Pensions (AWP) Department which sits within the Consumer Investments (CI) Directorate. You will have the opportunity to help deliver our vision across firms that operate in the sector. CI’s vision is that consumers can:

• Invest with confidence and understand the risks they are taking
• Access & identify investments that suit their circumstances and attitude to risk
• Be protected from scams
• Get advice or support to invest, should they want it

What you will be doing

• Supporting the development of supervision and mitigation strategies, setting clear expectations to firms, influencing, persuading and where appropriate, using formal powers to change conduct behaviour to deliver better outcomes for consumers
• Analysing the business models/strategies of firms and identifying how conduct risks could cause harm to consumers and/or markets at the heart of which is tackling egregious charging practises. This will focus on:
• Using a variety of sources, including the Wealth Data Survey, Tableau, Intact and open source to identify firms that are outlier firms from a price and value perspective
• Working with team members to sharpen the focus of risk indicators that might identify firms at risk of providing poor value, for example overtrading, excess profitability, layering of charges, and hidden charges
• Building upon price and value analysis already undertaken in the Wealth portfolio, reviewing the findings to contribute to strategy for further price and value-based work
• Assessing firm’s fair value assessments and communicating feedback
• Working with team members to develop portfolio-wide communication strategies to bring to life good and bad price and value practises and trends within the portfolio
• Developing constructive working relationships with senior management in firms and building strong working relationships with internal stakeholders who can support the delivery of the supervision strategies
• Understanding and applying FCA Principles and Handbook rules
• Escalating issues as appropriate, including proposing proportionate, outcome focused solutions to FCA senior management and relevant governing committees

What will you get from the role?

• A stimulating and exciting environment with varied and high-profile work
• A unique insight into the workings of firms across the sector and have the opportunity to influence firms’ senior management and behaviour
• Exposure to senior stakeholders and a diverse cross divisional FCA approach that includes Prudential, Resolution, Financial Crime and Enforcement action

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary
• Income protection

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.
The skills and experience you will have
We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role.

Minimum

• Experience of analysing, and making recommendations based on information relating to risks and firms’ compliance with FCA rules
• Excellent written communication skills
• Experience in the investment sector, gained through industry or regulatory experience

Essential

• Stakeholder management: you can build effective working relationships to support the delivery of supervisory objectives, flexing your style to build consensus and influence a range of diverse stakeholders
• Strong sense of accountability: you take ownership of problems and drive forward pragmatic action-based solutions
• Organisational skills and prioritisation: you can effectively manage priorities, which may change at short notice, and be able to adapt to change
• Ability to influence and negotiate while maintaining the integrity of the issues that need to be conveyed

About the FCA
The FCA regulates the conduct of 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found
here.
The FCA’s Values & Diversity
Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.
The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Associate - Regulatory role.
Flexible working
We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.
Multi-location
As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.
Useful information
Applications for this role close at 23:59 on 18th November 2024
This role is graded as Associate – Regulatory (Level 8)
What to expect from our interview process
All applications will be reviewed once the advert has closed.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited for a case study. If you are successful at the case study stage, you will progress to an interview.
Got a question?
If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:
For Internal applicants, please contact Cheryl Cheung at
cheryl.cheung@fca.org.uk
For External applicants, please contact Aaron Ward at
aaron.ward@fca.org.uk
Application support
We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.
If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.
Please note – Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted.

What you will be doing

• Supporting the development of supervision and mitigation strategies, setting clear expectations to firms, influencing, persuading and where appropriate, using formal powers to change conduct behaviour to deliver better outcomes for consumers
• Analysing the business models/strategies of firms and identifying how conduct risks could cause harm to consumers and/or markets at the heart of which is tackling egregious charging practises. This will focus on:
• Using a variety of sources, including the Wealth Data Survey, Tableau, Intact and open source to identify firms that are outlier firms from a price and value perspective
• Working with team members to sharpen the focus of risk indicators that might identify firms at risk of providing poor value, for example overtrading, excess profitability, layering of charges, and hidden charges
• Building upon price and value analysis already undertaken in the Wealth portfolio, reviewing the findings to contribute to strategy for further price and value-based work
• Assessing firm’s fair value assessments and communicating feedback
• Working with team members to develop portfolio-wide communication strategies to bring to life good and bad price and value practises and trends within the portfolio
• Developing constructive working relationships with senior management in firms and building strong working relationships with internal stakeholders who can support the delivery of the supervision strategies
• Understanding and applying FCA Principles and Handbook rules
• Escalating issues as appropriate, including proposing proportionate, outcome focused solutions to FCA senior management and relevant governing committee

What will you get from the role?

• A stimulating and exciting environment with varied and high-profile work
• A unique insight into the workings of firms across the sector and have the opportunity to influence firms’ senior management and behaviour
• Exposure to senior stakeholders and a diverse cross divisional FCA approach that includes Prudential, Resolution, Financial Crime and Enforcement actio