Silvana Wood

Partner
Sydney

Biography

Silvana is a partner in our Financial Services Regulatory group.

She is a market leader in director and executive accountability and governance, advising many of the big four banks, insurers and superannuation funds in this area.

Silvana routinely advises on licensing obligations, product design and distribution, anti-money laundering/counter terrorism financing and consumer protection obligations, and assists her clients to navigate interactions with APRA and ASIC relating to prudential and conduct regulatory breaches.

Her broader practice in financial services regulation includes regulatory change implementation, investigations and remediation programs.

Silvana and her team cover the full range of front-end regulatory compliance, investigations and contentious work.

Experience

Silvana’s experience includes advising:

  • In excess of 30 financial institutions in their implementation of the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) / Financial Accountability Regime (FAR) and leading internal BEAR/ FAR investigations.

  • A Big Four bank on product governance frameworks and associated procedures, ongoing product monitoring arrangements, review trigger and significant dealing processes and model for conducting tri-annual effectiveness reviews.

  • A bank in connection with the successful defence of an ASIC enforcement investigation relating to the bank’s scam risk management framework.

  • A bank in connection with the development and distribution of a bank-in-a-box service.

  • Various Boards and C-Suite clients on strategic issues and incident management, including regulatory investigations, interactions and other regulatory exposures.

  • Financial institutions on compliance with APRA Prudential Standards, including CPS 220 Risk Management, CPS 230 Operational Risk, CPS 234 Information Security and data risk management.

  • Financial institutions on requirements for misleading or deceptive conduct, unconscionable conduct, false or misleading representations/statements, unfair contract terms, scams, whistleblowing and disclosure.

  • A major general insurer on the acquisition of a mid-market general insurer and associated post-acquisition distribution arrangements.

  • Several banks and insurers on product governance/DDO post implementation reviews and uplift of product governance arrangements across the end-to-end value chain, including for advertising and anti-hawking and Spam Act compliance.

  • Several banks on their implementation of changes to the Banking Code of Practice.

  • Big Four Bank on a large-scale fee for no service remediation programme, including segmentation and triaging of customers, conducting pilots to review and test scope, developing guidance manuals and assurance models for reviewers.

  • A major nonbank lender on verification of essential expenditure under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act.

  • Multiple organisations in the banking, insurance and superannuation industries on developing, reviewing and uplifting remuneration and consequence management frameworks.

  • Banking, insurance and superannuation clients on APRA Prudential Standards CPS 511 Remuneration, CPS 510 Governance.

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