No slackening in compliance with laws and regulations due to coronavirus crisis

Jolet de Raadt, Lead License to Operate at Rabobank, explains how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted on compliance at Rabobank. While compliance briefly seemed to have dropped on the list of priorities, Rabobank has ultimately not compromised on compliance with laws and regulations.

“During the early days of the coronavirus crisis, the focus on compliance-related issues seemed to wane somewhat,” says De Raadt. “On 26 March, the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets even announced that it was suspending its data collection from financial institutions until June 1st 2020. This was on account of the impact the coronavirus pandemic was having on Dutch society. They wanted to give financial institutions scope to focus fully on dealing with the impact of the crisis on their own operations, but also on their customers.”

Also read the interview with Jaap van Manen about Compliance & Corona.

Exams postponed, but no slackening

“At Rabobank, we have not slackened in our compliance with laws and regulations,” De Raadt continues. “For example, if we look at legally required competency levels, none of our employees have given customers advice without being authorized to do so. However, the exams – such as those on the Financial Supervision Act and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive – were postponed. As a result, our new financial advisors had to wait to get their diplomas. Luckily, we have a sufficient number of authorized advisors to serve all our customers. Advisors are now taking exams again – obviously while adhering to the guidelines of the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.”

Interested in reading more about compliance? Click here to download our Dutch whitepaper about the changing role of the Compliance Officer.