Compliance has been a focus for Volkswagen and Skoda group Citygate Automotive for the past 11 years under their compliance manager Emily Leigh-Dugmore who will tell AM's F&I Conference how the business has amended its processes to meet Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requirements.

Leigh-Dugmore (pictured) takes to the stage at AM's event on November 10 at the Motorcycle Museum in Solihull, West Midlands which follows the success of the launch event last year and focuses on running a profitable and compliant F&I business.

Providing a window into one dealer group’s journey following the arrival of the FCA, Leigh-Dugmore provides a candid viewpoint of Citygate’s reasons for opting to take the full authorisation route and some of the processes the group addressed to ensure compliance. 

She said: "For me, if a dealer was willing to share some of their thoughts, talk through some of the processes they had implemented and give their opinions on what compliance should look like on the showroom floor, it would be golden.

“As dealers operating under the FCA, we think we are doing things right, but being able to compare our practices with what other dealers are doing is really useful so I genuinely hope what I have to say will help delegates by providing a comparison.

“Of course, I am also hoping attendees will be keen to give their views too."

Leigh-Dugmore's remit includes being involved in the training of sales staff and the sales processes the group has adopted since the regulator took responsibility for consumer finance. 

She said: "Many of our practices were already in place and it was very much a question of tweaking them to ensure they better reflected the FCA's regulations.

F&I is crucial for the business and as a group, we felt having full authorisation, which we achieved with no hitches at the end of last year, meant we would be best placed to continue to develop a profitable revenue stream whilst also enabling us to implement practices we are confident results in treating customers fairly."

New policies and procedures were introduced throughout the group with the arrival of the FCA and included new documentation, which is signed and kept on file as part of the audit trail and sales training was tweaked, which includes directors as well as the wider workforce receiving an annual refresher course.

Citygate embraced the new GAP regulations with much of the practices already in place, Leigh-Dugmore said: "We already had an extremely structured set of processes and policies in operation so in much the same way that we re-evaluated our finance procedures to meet FCA compliance rules, we did the same for GAP.

“It gave us the perfect opportunity to assess all our procedures and ensure best practice was in operation at each of our sites."

More information and tickets

Tickets are available to dealers and manufacturers, to book please visit http://am-fandi-compliance.am-online.com/ or contact Nicola Baxter on 01733 468289, email nicola.baxter@bauermedia.co.uk.

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