“We take the burden of dealing with language barriers, cultural differences, and knowledge of local rules and regulations for our clients when establishing and operating a business. This allows our clients and their employees to focus on running their business with the peace of mind that their entities are managed and maintained across the jurisdictions they operate in”

When it comes to entering and expanding into new markets and operating outside of one's home jurisdiction, several challenges need to be navigated to ensure compliance. Simple oversights threaten to damage reputations and can jeopardise operations. It can be difficult for in-house teams, lacking local knowledge of new markets, to keep pace with local regulations when a business is in high growth mode. Assisting businesses in this transition path are a variety of businesses around the globe. However, not all solution providers have capabilities to support their clients as strategic expansion partners, like TMF Group—a leading provider of critical administrative services, helping clients to expand and operate their businesses internationally. The company offers a wide range of services including accounting and tax, HR and payroll, global entity management, and fund administration. Most of the clients the company serves have multiple entities across the globe and support them with managing the complexity of cross-border business expansion. Local knowledge is important with any development, let alone a large-scale one. With more than 9000 experts across 86 jurisdictions, TMF Group helps its clients manage local and international regulatory compliance, such as FATCA, CRS, or the UBO register, enabling smooth operations from day one.

In fact, when navigating regulatory compliance for businesses, a local component and flavour is critical; even where many obligations stem from the same EU-wide or OECD-wide project. Especially where new regulations must be locally transposed, relying on local experts becomes essential and service providers like TMF Group, with a globally widespread network, can help their clients minimise risk of non-compliance.

Entity management at its best
Robust entity management is required to manage and keep entities across border compliant. Non-compliance of rules and regulations can lead to financial and even reputational loss. TMF Group’s entity management services, including incorporation, registered office, and director services, and special purpose vehicle services, offers complete solutions to support the complete lifecycle of the entity. This enables clients to navigate the complex and constantly changing regulatory landscape, while freeing up their time and resources to focus on growing their businesses. “We take the burden of dealing with language barriers, cultural differences, and knowledge of local rules and regulations for our clients when establishing and operating a business. This allows our clients and their employees to focus on running their business with the peace of mind that their entities are managed and maintained across the jurisdictions they operate in,” says Aynsley Vaughan, Global Head of Global Entity Management, Private Wealth and Family Office, TMF Group.

Being in the industry for more than three decades, with a network of 120 offices across the globe, TMF Group has hands-on experience with some of the world’s most complex jurisdictions that also offer the greatest opportunity.

Helping businesses stay compliant
TMF Group’s entity management services offers inception/incorporation through to dissolution/strike off/wind up/liquidation support. In between those stages, the TMF Group team supports operational readiness services post-incorporation, to be able to hire employees, and/or sell goods and services by registering with all the relevant authorities. “We provide local statutory book-keeping, accounting, and tax compliance services to support financial administration. TMF is the world’s third largest payroll provider, supporting companies to get their employees paid accurately and on time. Finally, we also provide our global entity management service, where we support companies with their corporate secretarial, fiduciary, regulatory compliance, and SPV management needs,” explains Aynsley.

When it comes to managing cross-border business, the company helps to keep its clients’ entities in good standing. This includes annual legal compliance, provision of a registered address (in case the client does not have a physical presence in the country) to receive and respond to official communications, and fiduciary representation on a case-by-case basis. The company also offers a wide variety of ad-hoc legal administrative services, such as directorship changes, arranging for powers of attorney, shareholder resolutions, etc. “Keeping an entity in good standing goes beyond that basic need. As we expand our GEM proposition both from a branding perspective via our website, articles, and social media channels and also with our increasingly larger multinational clients, as well as global law firms, we hope the term will be adopted by the General Counsel community,” adds Aynsley.

In order to support clients and businesses across the globe choose their next destination to expand to, TMF Group publishes its Global Business Complexity Index (GBCI) which shares insights to cut through the complexity of operating and investing safely around the world. The report celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year, and covers three core business areas: Accounting and Tax, Global Entity Management, and Human Resources and Payroll, along with global trends influencing business, and ranks 78 jurisdictions around the world on the basis of complexity of doing business. The GBCI helps clients identify potential challenges when developing their strategy for global growth, organically or otherwise. “Language, culture, local rules, regulation, and the rapid changes therein, can all be barriers to success. If you don’t do your homework, or work with a local expert such as TMF Group that can help navigate the local business landscape and help you build a solid business foundation, you can run into lengthy delays. We know how to unlock access to the world’s most attractive markets – no matter how complex – swiftly, safely, and efficiently. That’s why more than 60% of the Fortune Global 500 and FTSE 100, and almost half the top 300 private equity firms, work with us,” concludes Aynsley.