David Cairns has set up a new consultancy business in Jersey to help companies unravel the mystery of international financial standards and to make sure that they don’t make hard work for themselves by duplicating standards or adhering to ones that don’t apply.
I aim to help companies who are trying to implement compliance processes and to make them aware of the dangers of information leaking out from their organisation,’ said Mr Cairns, whose business is Level5 Technology in Broad Street.
‘Instant messaging, for example, is likely to be the new e-mail, but at the moment it is unaudited and not secure.
The use of technology should be encouraged, but as soon as you allow individuals to go beyond the established frontiers you need some form of regulation and control to make sure that the technology doesn’t run away with itself.
‘Even where specific guidelines don’t exist, our knowledge of what is best practice means that we can adopt a mix- and-match approach to make sure that all the requirements are covered.
I am a Tick-it auditor, concerned with the quality of software development, and an ITIL practitioner, which means that I have access to latest standards when it comes to IT service management, so I can make sure that any gaps are filled.
A good deal of regulation has come in since 11 September 2001, and much of it has a compliance deadline of 2005 – so firms need to act now.
Many firms have opted for a product approach and bought new software, but we think that an approach that looks at the firm’s underlying processes is more productive.
Why make hard work for yourself when you may already comply with a standard or think you comply but don’t?’Mr Cairns, in partnership with IT recruitment firm M Consulting, recently held a seminar to explain how companies could better manage their information and to outline a new anti-money laundering package called OmniEnterprise.
