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Australian Compliance Study Tour

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The Australian Compliance Study Tour

Introduction

With the ongoing introduction of new regulatory requirements and, in particular, the imminent implementation of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act, financial services organisations will, to some extent, be faced with new ways of doing business. The Australian Benchmarking trip has provided an opportunity to see how the challenges have been dealt with in Australia.

Background to the Visit
The field of compliance is relatively young; however, its rapid global development demands that South African financial services institutions build on the solid base of competence that is being established. One means by which this might be achieved is to study the practices found in similar environments. Australia provides an excellent learning ground given the similarities of its financial services sector to that of South Africa.
A study group of compliance and training professionals visited Australia with the view to improving their own professional knowledge across a broad spectrum of compliance subjects. Special attention was given to the Australian equivalent of FAIS, the Financial Services Reform Act, given its challenging implementation over the past three years.

Nature of the Visit
Meetings were held with known individuals and organisations across the financial services industry so that a comprehensive picture could be compiled of the Australian experience. Structured team discussions, managed and facilitated by the Project Managers, focused on drawing out and recording the key learning points to be transferred back into South Africa's response to the challenge.

By nature, the visit was designed to be an intense working experience and not an "industrial tour".
Before leaving for Australia, the Project Mangers facilitated explanatory sessions, during which the touring group was brought up to speed on the Australian environment and focused the group on defining the issues that should be considered whilst in Australia.

The Learning

The visit was structured to incorporate specific discussion sessions facilitated by the Project Managers. At these sessions, the group was invited to interrogate the information and learning with the view to distilling key points to be recorded. To facilitate the learning, , a Learning Journal was issued to each attendee to enable them to record personal insights for further use and discussion during or after the visit.
The learning was structured to take place during each of the phases of the initiative, namely: pre-visit workshops, Australia visit, post visit mini conference.

The Report

This report has been prepared by the members of the visit team. It will be made available to interested parties in the banking industry. A mini-conference is scheduled to take place, at which the contents of the report could be made available to wider audience. Finally, it is envisaged that the visiting team will deliver a presentation to the regulatory authorities on the lessons learnt in Australia.

The Objectives

The success of the visit to Australia is largely dependent on whether the original learning objectives identified by the team were met. The table below records the original Key Success Factors and comments on whether each Factor was met or not.

	Key Success Factor	Met / Not Met
1.	Systems solution identified	There is no “silver bullet” system solution
2.	What made Australia succeed?	Although Australia has at the time of the visit not yet fully implemented their equivalent act, several success factors in respect of the implementation phase have been noted. It is evident that Australia has encountered a number of significant challenges
3.	Implementation advice	Best practices identified
4.	Risk management insight	Gained good appreciation
5.	Basle II	Similar challenges are evident in Australia
6.	Customer communication	Good ideas obtained from banks visited
7.	Compliance reporting	Good insight gained by banks and Regulator
8.	Case Studies	Great case studies obtained
9.	Professional accreditation	Full insight provided by ACI
10.	Regulator views	Gained full set of views
11.	Compliance auditing	Obtained practical advice
12.	Ombudsman practices	Gained good set of best practices

In general it may be said that the original Key Success Factors were substantially met and, in some respects, were exceeded given the high quality of dialogue entered into with some of the presenters.