IPA membership and licence renewals opening on 10th October

Paul Smith, CEO

Hello all. Firstly, congratulations to all those who were successful in the recent JIEB results. We were delighted to see the overall top scorer in the Corporate paper was IPA Member Matthew Mills, Senior Manager at Kroll – congratulations Matthew!

Staying with celebration, I was delighted to join the IPA Secretariat in marking International Women’s Day on March 8th and reflecting on the incredible contributions of the women in the insolvency profession and those on the IPA’s Board, Committees and Secretariat Senior Leadership Team. Read IWD reflections from women leading the way in the profession here, which we shared on our social media channels recently.

On to other matters, following up on last month’s alert on fraudulent activity affecting the insolvency profession, I draw your attention to further developments in this area in the way of alerts from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). These relate to a firm unauthorised by the FCA targeting IPs with unsolicited lead generation messages, firms providing debt advice services without the appropriate permissions, and the impersonation of StepChange Debt Charity. Read more here.

As well as the requirement not to accept unregulated leads, members should report them to us via regulation@ipa.uk.com, or anonymously at amlwhistleblower@ipa.uk.com.

We will be focusing in detail on fraud and AML matters at this year’s Birmingham Roadshow, with the programme at the event dedicated to this particularly pressing topic. The schedule of Roadshows has now been released and can be viewed here. We’ll be visiting all UK nations and helping IPs get to grips with the myriad of activity affecting the profession this year! I also look forward to welcoming members to the upcoming Annual Conference on 27 April – view the programme and book places here.

Best wishes,

Paul