The recent High Court tracker mortgage decision again brought sharply into focus the onerous nature of potential remediation exercises. Increasing regulatory pressure, ever-changing customer expectations, rising customer vulnerability and a competitive marketplace, deem an increase in remediation requirements for financial services firms highly likely.

Money laundering is on the rise globally. Between 2016 and 2021, the yearly number of cases brought to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation doubled, bringing the total number of registered cases for that period to 3,000. In Ireland alone, the number of recorded money laundering crimes increased significantly from 86 in 2018 to 701 in 2021.

Why is Microsoft making this investment and integrating ChatGPT into its full product suite? What does ChatGPT mean for businesses? Artificial intelligence is not a new concept, so what is new about ChatGPT? The key difference is that it has optimised human dialogue and language. This means you do not need to be an AI guru to interact with it and find the answers you need.

For many businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic’s manifestation as a black-swan event highlighted the shortcomings of the organisation’s risk awareness and risk management ability. In 2023 and beyond, the need for a trusted Internal Audit business partner, with a truly enterprise-wide risk lens, has emerged as a must-have rather than an optional extra. Knowing yourself, and in particular knowing which areas pose the greatest risks to your organisation are critical in today’s business and regulatory environment.

Technology plays a large part in the personal and professional lives of the majority of people. Not only is it an enabler to everyday business-as-usual tasks, but for most, they could not effectively do their job without it. So, while implementation of a new system can be transformational for your organisation, without adequate buy-in from your people, it can be difficult to land a new system successfully. We highlight four key ways you can use people-led change to achieve and sustain a successful system implementation.

Are you wondering if your relationship with your ERP has run its course? There are a few ways to tell, say the ‘ERP relationship therapists’ at Grant Thornton

As we approach Budget Day there is a lot of chatter on possible measures that will feature as part of the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe’s speech.

One of the most prevalent challenges facing membership based organisations today is ensuring the range of services which they provide to their members consistently delivers value to them and meets their specific needs, both in present and future terms.

On 19 May 2021 and following a much publicised controversy surrounding “bulk” sales of housing stock to institutional investors, the Irish government passed a financial resolution introducing a new stamp duty rate of 10% targeted at the “bulk buying” of certain residential units.

The Central Bank published the Cross Industry Guidance on Operational Resilience in December 2021 expecting firms to be in a position to evidence compliance within two years. It has now issued an Operational Resilience Maturity Assessment to firms in all sectors to assess the level of preparedness in the financial services industry.

The international tax landscape is undergoing a period of unprecedented change which will impact many multinational groups in Ireland. Many of the changes are also relevant to domestic Irish businesses.

On the 15 March, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 became law in the UK. This new piece of legislation introduces a number of new obligations, some of which will apply to Irish companies that own land in the UK.

Jim Kelly, Director with Grant Thornton Ireland, discusses the changes to Revenue’s Code of Practice for Compliance Interventions, which has come into effect from the 1st of May 2022.

If employee engagement and retaining people is a priority for your business, embarking on a review of your employee policies and handbook is a great place to start – to enhance the overall employee experience.

Two or more persons may decide to operate as a single VAT registered body for the purposes of VAT - known as a VAT group. To form a VAT group, an application must be made to Revenue and approval is at the discretion of the Revenue.

The EU VAT e-Commerce Package which came into effect from 1 July 2021 has been well publicised over the past 12 months. One particular aspect of the changes was in relation to VAT due on distance sales of goods imported from outside the EU - the previous low value consignment VAT relief is now abolished. This means that all goods are now subject to VAT (previously goods under €22 were not subject to VAT).