The Comsure Group is a Jersey-based Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) advisory business.
Comsure’s primary market is Jersey, but the team has clients in other financial centres, for whom it travels extensively, spearheading the Comsure message of Governance, Risk and Compliance. Recent destinations include Guernsey, London, Seychelles, South Africa, Dubai and Mauritius.
Comsure supports companies (and their management) in meeting their risk obligations. However, the firm offers more than just the fulfilment of regulatory obligations; it positively influences and supports management in dealing with operational, strategic and compliance risks and the respective controls to mitigate the risk exposure.
The Comsure team also works across the ‘Three Lines of Defence’, ensuring effective implementation of systems and controls to prevent financial damage and personal liabilities, including fines from legal/regulatory violations and potential client / third-party compensation payments.
Post-COVID, Comsure clients realised how disruptive black-swan events such as the pandemic could result in unprecedented risk outcomes. As a result, Comsure is working with them to bring their enterprise-wide risk management processes to a new level and to be more resilient in the future for comparable external triggers and events.
Mathew Beale, Comsure’s Principal, is a well-known, industry-leading consultant in regulatory matters, advising SMEs to large companies on all issues regarding all areas of regulatory risk, including AML and business conduct. He also supports client companies in making the right decisions for the future.
Mathew is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (FCSI). To add to his qualifications and scope of knowledge, in March 2018, he sat the GDPR/APMG- international examination and is now a ‘Certified GDPR Practitioner’. After leaving the British Army, Mathew began working within the asset management industry for ten years and has since focused on financial services regulation. Between 1995 and 2002, he worked for the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) as a senior manager for the day-to-day conduct of the business of regulated entities. Since 2002, he has worked within a private practice in all aspects of regulatory compliance. From 2002 until May 2005, Mathew was a senior lecturer with the International Compliance Association (ICA). During this time, he co-authored the materials used by the ICA in their UK and International Diplomas in Compliance. In April 2005, he founded Comsure, which now consists of Comsure Compliance and Comsure Technology (the Comsure Group of Companies).
Today, Mathew is an experienced speaker, the author of numerous articles in specialist journals and daily newspapers, and the editor of a standard work on compliance management.
He noted: “Having spent 12 years as a practitioner and seven years as a senior manager at the JFSC, I set up Comsure in 2005. The firm quickly distinguished itself from its competitors thanks to its comprehensive and market-differentiated consulting with a single coordinated team of fully dedicated expert staff. We have had the pleasure of working in many International Financial Centres, including Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Mauritius and Seychelles, and being in demand at mainland centres, such as London and Dublin, Dubai and Cape Town.”
Mathew explained that clients have recognised that, in addition to fulfilling regulatory requirements, Comsure strives to ensure that a positive approach to governance, risk and compliance can differentiate themselves in the marketplace, thus contributing to shareholder value and stakeholder satisfaction.
The pandemic has also shaped Comsure positively. When looking at the last 18 months and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Comsure initially found work difficult.
Mathew added: “Our business is usually dominated by being with our clients and working very closely with our counterparts. Although we successfully bridged the home-office period, the business model had to alter to accommodate video conferencing. Once Zoom and other solutions became the norm, Comsure found it was building economies of scale into its offering, particularly for its mutual funds’ (CIS) clients. Many CIS have directors based worldwide, and pre-COVID, bringing them all together for briefings and training had been difficult. Suddenly, the pandemic forced everyone to think differently. For example, in February 2022, I participated in an African bank (multi-jurisdiction, x15 African countries) board and senior management briefing that addressed cyber-risk and money laundering risks. Pre-pandemic, this would never have happened.
“The crisis has shown us that our services are more relevant to companies today than ever before, not only because of Comsure’s approach to GRC but also because of the increased need for 21st-century solutions and their efficiencies. Therefore, we are determined to extend our service offering to include fintech – iTrack being our ground-breaking AML CRA tool – to defend our position as ‘the’ preferred Regulatory Advisory provider in Jersey and elsewhere.”
