Senior CASS Supervision Associate

Salary: National from £51,200 to £57,000 and London from £56,400 to £60,000

Are you interested in joining a specialist team at the heart of developing Client Assets (CASS) supervisory strategies for the FCA? 

The Team/Department

This is a diverse and dynamic team at the heart of protecting client assets and reducing harm in firm failures. We have an exciting opportunity for a skilled, ambitious and proactive individual to join the team as a Senior Associate.​

What you will be doing

As a senior associate you will build a specialism in client assets, gain an in-depth understanding of the CASS rules and their application to firms across a range of business models and sectors. You will have strong reasoning skills and sound judgement, with the ability to grasp technical issues quickly. You will also have good organisational skills to effectively manage completing priorities. Effective engagement with a range of internal and external stakeholders is also important, including the ability to influence firms.

• Leading engagement with firms on the remediation of CASS issues, including regulatory breaches
• Scoping and delivering assessments of firms’ compliance with the CASS rules, including where firms are at risk of failure. This will include analysing data (including client assets reconciliations), engaging with and questioning senior management of firms to ensure they deliver any necessary remediation
• Using judgement and sound evaluation to develop and propose CASS supervisory strategies to identify and mitigate harm
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with internal and key external stakeholders including the wider Specialist Directorate and FCA colleagues, regulated firms and auditors
• Ensuring compliance with all internal systems, processes, and requirements, including internal reporting and MI, ensuring relevant service level agreements (SLAs) are met
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of departmental processes by suggesting changes that result in more efficient use of resources and better outcomes
• Continually enhancing your knowledge and skills, and sharing knowledge with other team members

What you will get from the role?

• A unique opportunity to develop specialism in client assets supervision and enhance your knowledge of firms’ business models across different sectors
• The chance to mitigate the risk of consumer harm as a result of firms having inadequate client assets arrangements, including the impacts of any economic downturn faced by regulated firms in the UK
• Working with and influencing a range of key/senior stakeholders and industry professionals, both within and outside the FCA
• Working in a fast paced, supportive, and inclusive team environment

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.

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

Minimum 

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. 

• Experience of the FCA’s approach to CASS supervision, including the use of regulatory tools
• Experience of analysing technical/complex information (e.g. client asset reconciliations), and presenting key issues and proposing recommendations
• Experience of building and managing relationships with key internal and external stakeholders

Essential

• Practical understanding and experience of the UK client asset and/or safeguarding regime
• Strong judgement to identify and prioritise risks, and proposing suitable action/mitigation plans
• Excellent prioritisation and organisation skills, including managing a number of competing pieces of work at once, ensuring delivery against deadlines and quality is maintained
• Strong communication skills, the ability to communicate subjects clearly and confidently both orally and in writing
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a team

About the FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of 50,000 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 Senior Associate 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 29th September 2024
• This role is graded as Senior Associate - Regulatory ​
• Interviews will take place from 14th October 2024

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:

For internal applicants, please contact Linda Bradley at [email protected] ​

For external applicants please contact Chhavi Bartaria at [email protected] 

What to expect from our interview process  

If your application is successful you will be invited to complete a competency based interview and Case Study​

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.