Iress : Supporting licensees with our Advice Compliance solution

October 2021 will see the commencement of a number of important financial services reforms, including the commencement of the Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO), new ASIC breach reporting requirements, and new regulation for how firms manage dispute resolution. And Iress is enabling our clients across all these obligations.

All of this new regulation was drafted in response to the Royal Commission, and all of it increases the demand on the advice industry both to comply with a widening set of obligations, and to make reporting and data available that evidences this compliance. Iress is supporting licensees to meet the new breach reporting reforms through our Advice Compliance solution, which is available within Xplan, complementing our industry-wide solutions for the Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) and Advice Fee Consent.

ASIC's new breach reporting reforms require the industry to identify and report on a wider range of breaches, and to remediate consumers in a more timely manner. And ASIC has given fair warning that it will take a reasonable approach where firms have systems changes underway, however, 'where firms are not acting in good faith or where [ASIC] detect conduct causing actual harm, ASIC will not hesitate to enforce the law.'

Iress' Advice Compliance solution supports licensees to proactively manage these additional regulatory obligations through data intelligence software that can quickly identify risks and enable licensees to address problems as they arise. This data-driven form of Advice Compliance supports more efficient monitoring and visibility for licensees, including:

• Proactive monitoring of ongoing fee arrangements/fee consent and service delivery;
• Monitoring of fees charged to ensure services are delivered fairly and honestly; and
• Visibility of the advice process and advice product recommendations to ensure compliance.

Because ASIC has made it clear that data is fundamental to successful compliance, Iress also provides a suite of tools to identify data gaps or errors by advisers in their Xplan data. Through Advice Compliance, licensees can support their entire advice network with their record keeping, so they can identify and manage potential risks within required timeframes. Operational staff also gain efficiencies as they no longer need to manually extract and assemble data for various compliance reports - saving days of work per month.

Iress is dedicated to supporting the industry to meet its obligations through highly efficient, reliable and scalable technology solutions. We have seen strong demand for our Advice Compliance solution from across the industry, with numerous licensees already signed up to use the solution to meet their compliance obligations ahead of the reforms commencing in October.

Anyone wanting more information on Iress' Advice Compliance solution can visitwww.iress.com/advicecompliance.