Finsure Group, has criticised the lack of support and tools on offer to advisers in New Zealand to help them meet their compliance obligations.
After launching its expansion into New Zealand earlier this month. Finsure’s executive team has noted that New Zealand advisers are not getting the same level of compliance support as their Australian equivalents.
Finsure head of compliance and risk, Samantha Wills, said she could see a real opportunity to help deliver best practice compliance support in the New Zealand adviser sector.
“Frankly, we see a huge opening to support New Zealand advisers to help them meet their compliance obligations through leverage our compliance tools and support,” she said.
“Finsure has been leading the way in Australia by using compliance as an enabler rather than as an inhibitor.
“Our compliance team can take immediate action when they identify that an adviser is not following the framework in instances such as failing to upload minimum required documents or underquoting living expenses.
“Importantly, our early intervention strategy allows the adviser the chance to change their behaviour and ensure their mistake is not repeated before it’s too late. No other New Zealand aggregator is taking this approach. Finsure is leading the way in turning attitudes to compliance away from after-the-fact detection and firmly towards prevention.”
Wills, who has almost 20 years’ experience dealing with compliance in the finance, banking and insurance sectors, said Finsure’s customer relations management (CRM) platform Infynity has been helping advisers to save on time consuming compliance tasks by providing automation.
“Rather than having to fill out multiple Disclosure Documents, our CRM actually prefills out the information for the adviser and combines this process into a single reader friendly document,” she said. “This takes out a lot of manual work, reduces duplication of information whilst also reducing human error.
“We also conduct regular file reviews to support and assist advisers stay on top of compliance obligations. We overlay this with regular training. Training methods tailored to their preference - face to face or webinar. Importantly the training is personalised to each business. We provide compliance training that’s aligned to the individual members Financial Adviser Provider (FAP) licence not just the master FAP licence.
“If an adviser is ever stuck or needing assistance an adviser can call or email our compliance specialists for guidance and advice. Given how time consuming it can be for advisers to meet their compliance obligations, Finsure are planning to lead to way with automation and personalised support."