A client-centric obligation management solution

Client challenge

Participants in the Australian Financial Services industry are continually experiencing regulatory reforms, especially following the recommendations arising from the Hayne Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services industry. A major recommendation of this Royal Commission was the introduction of the reportable situations regime, which came into effect in October 2021. Under this regime, Australian Financial Services and credit licensees must report a breach of a core obligation – and there are thousands of core obligations that are regularly changing. Licensees have found it challenging to identify, maintain and update their core obligations to keep up with regulatory reform and changes in their business models.

Our solution

We introduced our Obligation Management Solution to support the breach reporting team of a major Australian bank to maintain a tailored list of core obligations under the reportable situation regime. Our solution integrates seamlessly into the bank's existing breach reporting process and, through our digital platform, enables the breach reporting team to be able to search the obligations where necessary as part of their investigations process. Additionally, the solution provides a monthly maintenance service to maintain the currency of the obligations, and a regulatory horizon-scanning and insights publication, to support the bank to keep pace with reform to the breach reporting obligations.

Client benefit

Our Obligation Management Solution allowed our banking client to access a tailored obligation subscription service with monthly updates, plus regulatory insights, to help manage its reporting obligations under the reportable situation regime. This solution was developed and delivered by our integrated legal, Risk Advisory and NewLaw teams, in consultation with our banking client's breach reporting team.