Compliance is a crucial element of our corporate culture. It’s how we make sure we do business fairly, honestly and ethically, following regulations not just in spirit, but to the letter. As our Compliance Adviser for Financial Markets, you—together with your colleagues—oversee this for KBC Bank.

Would you like to know more about Compliance at KBC?

The role of compliance has become even more important in recent years as rules and regulations in Europe have become stricter and more complex. Supervisors are carrying out checks that demand increasingly high levels of performance.

In fact, quite a few very large banks have had to pay heavy fines and suffered damage to their reputation after being found to have infringed the rules and regulations. Needless to say, we wish to avoid that.

As Compliance Advisor, you fulfil two important roles:

1) Advising business stakeholders, supporting them with training, and creating awareness in our organisation in relation to compliance themes.

2) Checking whether the regulations are being effectively respected.

Within Group Compliance, there are various technical units responsible for specific aspects of the regulations:

• Our Financial Markets Unit focuses on the protection of investors and policyholders and the prevention of market abuse.

• Colleagues in other technical units are responsible for privacy and consumer protection, corporate governance, prevention of fraud, and battling against the laundering of money and financing of terrorism, while ensuring embargoes are respected.

You make sure that KBC Bank (and Bolero and Securities Services in particular) comply with all regulations in relation to financial market activities. With you on the job, the interests of our clients are always protected.

You provide advice in relation to projects, in ad hoc situations and in the formal product-approval process.

You’re responsible for the interpretation and translation of national and European regulations for clear internal rules that are made available throughout the KBC Group, and for the analysis of the impact made by changes to the regulations for financial markets.

You’re open to consulting with the business on how to apply the regulations. This makes it possible to take into account the specific circumstances in which the rules need to be applied.

You work intensely with the Monitoring Officers on the performance checks and controls to ensure the regulations are correctly applied in practice. Together, you draw conclusions from the results of these checks and controls.

You take the initiative when it comes to increasing internal company awareness of external regulations for financial markets. How? Examples may include training courses, e-learning sessions and your active presence at relevant meetings.

You perform checks and controls on the implementation of elements of the regulation in entities outside Belgium.

You still put the customer first, making sure we conform to regulations:

o through an honest, fair and professional way of performing, and clear, correct communication that is never misleading;

o by applying the code of conduct for the provision of investment services, carrying out orders that give the client the most beneficial conditions, and management of conflicts of interest;

o by putting adequate policy rules and procedures in place to guarantee that our responses are of the highest standard and we work to assert the general efficiency of the financial system.