A compliance consultancy specialist that has seen demand soar as regulations have mounted is opening an office in the Asian city in coming days.

Bovill, the UK financial services regulatory consultancy, is to open an office in Singapore in the next few days.

Its chief executive, Ben Blackett-Ord, is already based in Singapore and is putting together a team of compliance specialists with local knowledge and international experience. The office will open before the month is out.

Bovill Asia will help fund managers, brokers, banks, wealth managers and venture finance firms with both day-to-day compliance and regulatory projects. The firm has 15 years’ experience in the UK, during which time it has also been called Bovill Gunn and the Bovill Group. Its new Asia office will help clients obtain authorisation for various services from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It also wants to help organisations fall into line with the updated Financial Action Task Force recommendations of 2012 and new outsourcing and data protection laws.

The firm also wishes to attract the custom of Singaporean firms that want to market funds in Europe and the UK - a set of customers that might want help in their struggle to tackle the European Union's directives, which include the Alternative Investment Fund Managers' Directive and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.

The Singapore office will be the firm’s first permanent international office. It currently has offices in London and Manchester and a representative office in New York.

Blackett-Ord has said that one of his reasons for channelling Bovill's energies towards the Singaporean market is "demand from UK-based clients for international advice”. Another might be that UK regulations, regulatory practices, old regulators and indeed money are inexorably and constantly radiating outwards to South Asia and the Caribbean.

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