CASS Spring Forum 2024

Ash Saluja has over 20 years of experience advising clients on regulatory and commercial matters. Clients include banks, broker-dealers, funds, investment managers and advisers, exchanges, platforms and trading facilities, insurers and insurance intermediaries, as well as the large corporate/pension fund clients and suppliers of these types of institutions. Ash advises on the authorisation and conduct of business requirements, corporate governance, regulatory capital, client money and assets, product design and distribution, cross border business, insider dealing and market abuse, anti-money laundering requirements, as well as the regulatory aspects of mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, joint ventures and outsourcings.

Jack Biss is a Senior Manager in Deloitte’s Client Assets and Safeguarding team with nine years experience working in client asset roles, five of which consisted of leading client assets audit and advisory engagements at Deloitte across a broad range of clients including wealth managers, fund managers, stockbrokers, investment banks, custody banks, prime brokers, and platforms. Jack’s industry work experience consists of working in house at a platform and in the central CASS team at a global bank.

Jonathan has over 18 years of experience advising UK financial services firms on compliance with the FCA's CASS rules. Throughout this time, he worked initially as a CASS auditor before moving into industry. He has been at Evelyn Partners for the last 9 years where he became the individual with overall responsibility for CASS Oversight, now SMF 18, in 2016. At Evelyn Partners he oversees a CASS large firm which is the group's in-house custodian, a CASS medium TA firm and a number of limited assurance firms. Jonathan is a regular speaker at industry events and contributor to best practice guides. He was recognised for his contributions to the CASS industry by receiving an individual award in the category of Best CASS Specialist at the 2020 City of London Wealth Management Awards.

Joy Davey is a partner in the Financial Services & Regulation Team at CMS UK specialising in outsourcings by financial institutions. I combine both commercial and regulatory expertise when helping clients negotiate their outsourcing arrangements. This includes advising clients on applicable outsourcing requirements (including SYSC 8 and the EBA Guidelines), their cloud outsourcing arrangements, the operational resilience requirements (SYSC 15A) and DORA. I help clients navigate the operational aspects of financial services regulation.

Anna is a chartered accountant and dedicated CASS specialist, with over 25 years of experience of working in an industry, audit, assurance and advisory capacity. She has extensive experience of working in the investment management and platform sectors and has led a number of CASS audits and assurance reviews. She has an in-depth knowledge of operational processes and is skilled at supporting firms in remedying complex CASS issues.

Roberta is the Interim Head of CASS for Money Box. A chartered accountant trained at PwC, where she worked for 10 years. Worked in External and Internal audits and CASS advisory. Roberta been a CASS specialist for the last 12 years.

Shaid is based in Scotland where he received his undergraduate education in Finance & Risk Management at the Glasgow Caledonian University. He has gone on to have an extensive career in banking and investment services over the past 25 years in both the wholesale institutional and retail sectors in the UK and Europe. His career history includes firms such as Morgan Stanley, Scottish Widows, Barclays and most recently abrdn. For the past 12 years, Shaid has focused his attentions on client asset regulations in the UK and specifically the FCA’s CASS rules and has been a leading industry commentator on this topic in the UK. As Head of Client Assurance for abrdn’s Adviser business, Shaid is responsible for the oversight of client assets and operations of two of the UK’s largest investment platforms, Wrap & Elevate. Additionally, Shaid is a founding member of the Scottish CASS Forum, a member of the UK wide TISA CASS Technical Committee and Co-President of the CISI Scotland Committee. With these associations, Shaid has represented industry bodies in several CASS consultations with the FCA and other regulatory agencies in developing regulation and establishing industry best practise.

Joe is a Director in Ernst & Young LLP’s Extended Assurance Financial Services team with over 10 years of Financial Services experience. Joe acts as a CASS and Payments safeguarding SME in the CASS/Safeguarding practice for EY. He supports a range of Wealth & Asset Management firms on CASS matters and payment firms on safeguarding matters.

Lauren has worked primarily in CASS for almost a decade, currently holding the CASS Oversight function at Virgin money Investments. She started her career in operations and has since gained CASS experience across all four lines of defence, including CASS Compliance at a large platform and TPA firm and external CASS audits and CASS engagements for a range of firms at EY.

Edward has worked for the last 14 years in the financial services practice at Mazars. He has focussed his regulatory work on CASS with clients across multiple sectors and business models. He is responsible for Mazars’ policies and the practical aspects of developing methodology, the training of staff and internal ‘licensing’ of staff for CASS related work. Edward represents Mazars at the ICAEW CASS and Safeguarding working party.

Katy holds the Head of CASS Operational Oversight role at T. Rowe Price, overseeing a medium sized CASS firm and a further limited assurance CASS firm. Katy has over 10 years’ experience in the financial services industry. She initially started her career as a financial statement auditor at Big 4 firm, Deloitte. She later moved in the regulatory assurance team at Deloitte, specialising in CASS external and internal (co-source) audits and wider CASS assurance reviews within the investment management sector.

As Director of Risk and Technical Policy at TISA, Lisa has emerged as one of the leading voices in Consumer Duty, having brought together the industry to produce a comprehensive Best Practice Guide, and currently working to bring about a standardised framework for data sharing across the distribution chain. Lisa also leads TISA work on vulnerability, an area which she is particularly passionate about, having had lived experience. Lisa is an experienced outsourcing, risk and CASS specialist with over 25 years’ experience in financial services, with a particular focus on client protection. She has held senior roles encompassing oversight of outsourced delivery of services within the asset management sector to both retail and professional clients, and held the role of CF10a, an FCA approved role responsible for compliance to Client Asset Protection. Prior to this she held senior roles in a large outsourcing service provider, including as a Lead Client Relationship Manager responsible for delivering services appropriate for a regulated firm, and leading large operational finance teams based in the UK and India. She has significant experience in implementing oversight and risk management frameworks to effectively identify and manage the risks associated with outsourcing and offshoring regulated activities. During her time as a CF10a, she took a key role in a joint client/service provider remediation programme, gaining valuable experience and insight into meeting the regulators expectation in relation to service providers performance, and regulated firms oversight of its outsourcing arrangements. She has a breadth of regulatory knowledge, in particular with a deep understanding of SYSC; CASS; COBs; COLL; MiFID; and MiFID II and is accomplished in assisting senior managers to Board level in understanding regulatory obligations.