1. What is your role at Nucleus365?

Chief Compliance Officer

2. What does your average day look like at Nucleus365?

As a member of the Nucleus365 management team, my primary responsibility as Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) is to oversee the company's compliance with relevant laws, regulatory requirements, and procedures. This requires a unique individual who can provide both leadership and specialised expertise. Achieving a balance between leadership and subject matter knowledge is essential in setting the tone for Nucleus365. As CCO, it is crucial to earn the respect of the business in order to influence senior leaders, contribute authoritatively in C-Suite meetings, and address any inappropriate behaviours from other leaders.

In addition to these responsibilities, I play a critical role in making decisions about new senior hires, preparing board papers, attending regulator interviews, and engaging in liaison meetings. Staying informed about regulatory expectations is vital, and I apply my experience to help guide the business in recognizing and reinforcing its compliance framework.

On a day-to-day basis, I focus on addressing regulatory or legislative matters that are escalated through the business, presenting reports on compliance operations and business operations from a compliance perspective at team and risk committee meetings, and collaborating with the board. I also manage a team, overseeing leadership aspects such as performance, pay, team size, dynamics, and overall morale.

Ultimately, my role is to balance regulatory requirements with the company's business objectives while effectively mitigating risks to ensure ongoing compliance.

3. How did you get into the payments sector?

Having previously worked in many High Street Banks, part of that compliance role was to monitor payments both in and out, this opened me up to the many different ways that compliance plays such an important part in AML.

4. What excites you most about the payments sector and your work?

No two days are ever the same! In addition, In order to keep up with the ever changing ways in which criminals try to infiltrate the payments system for self-gain It’s important and interesting to familiarise myself with ongoing industry trends  - both good and not so good.

5. What trends do you see emerging in the next few years in the payments industry?

Authorised Push Payment Fraud

As we move into 2024, APP fraud will remain high on the agenda. For Payment Service Providers (PSPs), a key focus will be implementing the new reimbursement requirements from the Payments Systems Regulator (PSR). For any fraudulent transactions made using Faster Payments, PSPs will be obliged to reimburse individuals, charities and microenterprises within five working days, though the clock can be stopped if they need to gather further information. Most businesses, however, will not be protected by the new rules, so their focus will be on putting in place controls, such as Confirmation of Payee and more robust payment authorisation controls, to combat the risk of APP fraud.

Operational resilience and control culture

From a regulatory perspective, recent operational resilience requirements, such as those issued by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in 2022 and the new Consumer Duty from the FCA have increased the focus on service delivery trust in the financial services space. In a now predominantly digital world, end users of banking and payment systems need to have confidence that their online services are reliable and delivered in a timely manner.