Sterling Partners
Automated compliance & audit reporting
72%
Audit preparation cost reduction
18 days → 3 days
Reporting cycle time
< 2%
False positive rate
400 → 112
Analyst hours per quarter
The challenge
Quarterly compliance reporting consumed 400+ analyst hours per cycle. One regulatory change could double that.
Sterling Partners is a FCA-regulated investment advisory firm. Their compliance function had grown to 14 people, yet quarterly reporting still required 400+ analyst hours to produce. When the FCA introduced new Consumer Duty requirements in 2023, the firm's compliance director estimated it would add another 180 hours per cycle. Maple & Chen built an automated compliance intelligence system that changed the calculus entirely.
Our approach
Regulatory mapping
We worked with Sterling's compliance team and external counsel to build a machine-readable map of all FCA reporting obligations — 340 discrete requirements across 12 rulebooks. This became the source of truth for the automation layer.
Data extraction & classification
An LLM-based extraction layer reads trade data, client communications, advice records, and complaint logs — classifying each against the regulatory obligation map. Documents that require human review are flagged with the specific obligation and the reason for escalation.
Audit-ready output
The system produces FCA-formatted reports directly. Each output includes a full audit trail: source document, extraction timestamp, classification rationale, and the regulatory text it maps to.
“Consumer Duty would have broken us under the old process. With this system, we absorbed the new requirements in a single sprint.”
Claire Donnelly
Head of Compliance, Sterling Partners
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