This article provides an overview of Compliance Management for IT.

Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), there has been a tsunami of regulations (Dodd-Frank Act, Basel III, Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, General Data Protection Regulation etc.) placing tremendous burden on the IT functions in organisations to ensure their systems, infrastructures and processes remain compliant. Regulatory requirements are obligatory requests from official governing authorities that dictate and control the behaviour of organisations around specific areas of concern within respective industry sectors and jurisdictions. The regulatory authorities that impose the compliance requirements on the financial services organisations are mainly focused on ensuring the financial stability and integrity, as well as high standards of conduct. For organisations that fail to comply with the regulatory requirements the consequences can lead to substantial financial penalties and reputational damage.

Information Technology plays a critical role in organisations and is regarded as a strategic necessity due to its importance in the delivery of organisational strategic and operational activities. Organisations rely on their IT functions to provide solutions that enable them to comply with regulatory requirements in an effective and efficient manner. The role of IT becomes even more important for organisations that have global operations and are subject to regulatory requirements across many regional and local jurisdictions. The main goal of IT compliance management is to ensure that the IT functions within organisations are operating in a compliant manner by verifying that the required IT governance policies, controls and standards and the IT risk management frameworks are effectively managed. This includes areas, such as, data collection and management, audit trails, workflows, database management, information and application security, internal and external fraud, supplier management, system availability, and service delivery.

For more information please contact Morland-Austin at info@morland-austin.com.