6 Final Conclusion

As stated above, the basic principle is that the outsourcing company remains fully responsible to its regulator and its clients or beneficiaries for the acts or omissions of its service as if it were its own. In order to live up to this responsibility, it must remain “in control” over the outsourced activities as if they were its own.

In essence, the outsourcing rules hinge on three basic rules: 1) A company that outsources activities must do so in a careful way, 2) the outsourcing must not obstruct supervision by the regulator and 3) the outsourcing must not change the relationship with its beneficiaries or clients.

All things considered, the outsourcing rules do not change that much compared to a world without them. Indeed, outsourcing must not change the relationship with the beneficiaries or clients. I already discussed that such a change in relationship is difficult to imagine. Obviously, an outsourcing must not obstruct supervision either. In the same way that a company must fulfil its obligations towards beneficiaries or clients, regardless of whether the work is outsourced, it must also fulfill its obligations to the regulator. A company that outsources activities must do so in with care. Nonetheless, even without outsourcing rules, an outsourcing company would have to arrange the outsourcing in a careful way in order to meet its obligations towards its regulator and its beneficiaries or clients.

The outsourcing rules wether such clarify especially what an outsourcing company should do, outsourcing rules exist or not. Careful outsourcing is a matter of analysing the (potential) risks and controlling these risks by taking adequate measures. The outsourcing rules can therefore be understood as an elaboration of the obligation to possess a controlled and incor-ruptible operations management.

I do not claim, however, that the outsourcing rules do not matter, or that outsourcing is a topic that does not matter. On the contrary, it takes quite an effort to handle an outsourcing with due care. However, that would also be the case without such outsourcing rules. The relevance of the outsourcing rules lies, among others, in putting the subject on the agenda of pension funds and financial institutions. That has been different in the past. In addition, they provide outsourcing companies with a guide to what issues to pay attention to when outsourcing (carefully). It would have been better, though, had that “guide” been more consistent.