Financial Services
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Over 30 years Chairmont has been involved in every sector of the financial services industry. Major assignments have been undertaken in retail and business banking, credit cards, funds management, stockbroking, exchanges and clearing houses, investment banking, internet and electronic payment systems. This work ranged from strategy development through to technological implementations.
Chairmont has been involved in banking licence applications through to establishing banks. This work included working on the conversion of Hill Samuel to Macquarie Bank, conversion of Industrial Bank of Japan’s representative office to a trading bank, obtaining both the subsidiary then branch licences for ING Australia, working of the Chase AMP joint venture, preparing the economic benefit report for Chemical Bank’s licence application and involvement on the privatisation of State Bank of NSW to Colonial. In the UK, there was the licence rationalisation exercise for Westpac after it acquired Mase (a gold bullion dealer).
Compliance has become a major cost of business. Since starting operations in 1995 Chairmont has worked on or around compliance exercises, e.g. Basel 1, 2 and 3, AML & CTF, Uniform Consumer Credit Code (UCCC), National Consumer Credit Protection (NCCP), Managed Investments Act, etc and their impacts on business operations and the need for a culture of compliance. It is our experience that compliance projects should be treated as business projects and used as an opportunity to re-engineering processes, introduce or improve technology solutions and develop new customer service metrics.
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Increasing regulations is raising the barriers to entry. Chairmont has solid understanding of the US banking system, and in particular the mortgage and investment markets. The uniqueness of the US mortgage market through the role of Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSEs) for qualified mortgages (QM), along with its industry segmentation (origination, servicing and secondary markets) and Federal as well as State level regulations means operating across the US has significant challenges.
The Asian financial services market has also provided Chairmont with an opportunity to demonstrate its expertis