In a statement, the FSC said it had worked with over 60 member firms to design DDO templates for target market determinations and industry data standards across life insurance, super, managed funds and managed accounts – what it called “version 1.0” of the templates.
Further templates were in development for investor directed portfolio services, investment bonds, education bonds and funeral bonds, the council said.
“Eighteen months ago we started on this time-critical piece of work, designing target market determination templates and data standards for super funds, platforms and wraps, life insurers and fund managers, to help financial services firms prepare for the DDO regime on October 5,” FSC chief executive Sally Loane said.
“Our templates and standards should make life much easier for product issuers, platforms and financial advisers who would otherwise face confusing and inconsistent compliance requirements. Without this alignment, advisers in particular will be faced with having to comply with dozens of different templates.”
The FSC said it had made the templates available to non-members of the industry body, where they had so far been taken up by over 200 different firms.
“I am proud that our members and the FSC team have devoted thousands of hours to a project which will assist the entire sector, and consumers,” Ms Loane said.
“The fact that so many firms are using our templates clearly indicates the importance these businesses put on reducing costs while meeting their DDO requirements.”
