Assurance and controls testing

S&W’s experienced regulatory consulting team provides independent evaluations, risk assessments, and remediation strategies that strengthen and enhance compliance frameworks, supporting your business in delivering good client outcomes.

Our controls testing, prudential assurance and specialist assurance services help businesses proactively improve their controls, identify potential risks early, and implement strategies that enhance stability and compliance.

We can also provide support and assurance in situations where an issue has crystallised within the business—whether it involves a past business review, a remediation project or an independent or skilled person review.

We provide an external perspective and in-depth controls testing that get to the heart of your compliance activity. Our evaluations highlight the requirements needed to ensure effective regulatory compliance processes are present and embedded across your organisation.

Our team combines deep regulatory expertise with decades of hands-on experience gained from working with regulators across multiple jurisdictions. It enables us to draw on best practices from across the UK and global financial services sectors.

We can benchmark your compliance framework against evolving industry standards, market best practices and regulatory expectations—identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Our expertise lies in financial regulation, but our assurance services are not limited to second-line functions. We are also highly experienced in providing advice, guidance, insight and assurance across all three lines of defence.

This means we can deliver internal audit services—acting as an outsourced or co-sourced third line of defence—to provide independent review, challenge and assurance opinions across your firm’s entire control framework.

We also offer specialist controls testing and internal audit services in collaboration with our risk advisory consulting colleagues.

We perform due diligence for a range of firms with a regulatory footprint, including wealth managers, mortgage advisers, insurance brokers and pension advisers. We help our clients manage the risks associated with mergers and acquisitions, providing expert insights and evaluations to support informed decisions with full awareness of relevant regulatory, financial and operational issues.

Our advice and services enable businesses to identify potential risks, evaluate a target’s governance, culture and resilience, and future-proof their operations by assessing compliance with emerging regulations – including those related to ESG and AI governance.

We offer four levels of due diligence review to suit varying needs, from high-level assessments of targeted systems and controls to comprehensive desk-based evaluations and holistic analysis with suggested enhancements and remediation.

Importantly, our advice focuses on risk, considering go/no-go factors that are critical to your business. We can also tailor due diligence programmes for clients who regularly undertake acquisition activity – adding more value as we deepen our understanding of your business and its risk appetite.

Whatever your needs, our team works to support, assess and advise you to help build, maintain and enhance robust regulatory controls and systems.

• Specialist reviews, including skilled person reviews and remediation projects
• Internal controls evaluations
• Best-in-class initiatives
• Complaint handling and dispute resolution expertise
• Regulatory M&A due diligence
• Assurance statements
• Perimeter guidance
• Regulatory and diagnostic health checks 

• External financial and CASS audits for FCA-regulated firms
• ICAAP and ICARA support services
• CASS health checks  
• Outsourced or co-sourced internal audit 

You can take comfort in our expertise. S&W’s team brings decades of experience working with regulators and the financial services sector. They have a proven track record of delivery across wealth and asset management, mortgages, insurance and the wider financial services sector.

From controls testing and compliance benchmarking to tailored, sector-specific due diligence reports and forward-looking analysis, we help businesses identify, manage and mitigate their regulatory risks.

With a broad range of regulatory consulting services and seamless support from the resources of a top ten UK accounting and professional services firm, we offer comprehensive services, in-depth expertise and industry insights for every stage of business.

To find out more about how we can keep your compliance controls current and robust, talk to us today.