Advice for the moment the regulator is already at the table.

FEC Advisory is the independent practice of Frank Cochius. It advises boards and executives on financial economic crime, regulatory risk and compliance, and takes interim responsibility for the functions that carry it — most often when an institution is under scrutiny and the answers have to hold up outside the building.

Get in touch Background

Sound judgement when the regulatory stakes are high.

Twenty-five years · Banking, asset management, corporates

Practice areas

Where the practice is usually called in.

Engagements are taken on directly, at board or executive level, and worked personally rather than staffed out. They range from advice to systemically important and globally systemically important banks to interim leadership of a function, across retail and corporate banking, wealth, investment banking and asset management, and industries outside financial services facing the same obligations.

01 — Advisory

AML, sanctions and terrorist financing

Anti-money laundering, sanctions, terrorist financing and proliferation financing: assessing what an institution has, what the supervisor expects, and where the gap actually is.

02 — Interim leadership

Heading a function, temporarily

Interim Head of KYC and interim Head of Sanctions: taking line responsibility for a function while it is being rebuilt, recruited for, or brought back under control.

03 — Remediation

Programme design and remediation

Designing fit-for-purpose compliance frameworks and seeing remediation through implementation — the part where most programmes are won or lost.

04 — Delivery

Change and programme leadership

Leading large regulatory change and remediation programmes end to end: scope, sequencing, governance, and the reporting that has to satisfy both the board and the supervisor.

How the work is done

Three things that do not change.

At board level

The conversation is with the people who carry the responsibility. Findings are put plainly, including the ones nobody ordered.

Evidence before opinion

A compliance position is only worth what can be shown. Every conclusion is traceable to something a supervisor can examine.

Through to implementation

A report that changes nothing is a cost. The work continues until the framework is actually in operation.

Background

Twenty-five years, mostly in the middle of it.

Before establishing the practice, Frank Cochius led international teams in risk management, compliance and regulatory oversight across retail, corporate, wealth, investment banking and asset management. The practice has since combined advisory work with interim leadership of KYC and sanctions functions.

2016 — presentFEC Advisory · Managing Director. Independent advisory practice, Netherlands.

2017 — 2020PwC Netherlands · Senior Advisor

2014 — 2015Alvarez & Marsal · Senior Director, later Senior Advisor · Munich and London

1996 — 2012PwC · Senior Manager, Director (New York), Principal Manager

EducationMSc Applied Physics, Delft University of Technology · Executive MBA, Rotterdam School of Management

Client names and engagements are not published. Subject-matter references can be provided on request, within the limits of confidentiality.