So what is this deadline?

If your financial services firm holds an AFSL in Australia, ASIC requires you to provide them a report of all complaints data from the period between July 1 to December 31, 2023.

And, the deadline to get this done is February 29, 2024.

We've been assisting our Tranche 1 and 2  clients at Causia with this ASIC reporting process, and one thing is clear from our experience so far:

ASIC is serious about enforcing compliance with RG 271. 

With ASIC taking “civil penalty action against Telstra Super in Australian-first case” (ASIC, November - 2023 [ARTICLE LINK]), this is not a regulation to be taken lightly.

Issues such as under-reporting could put you on their radar for an audit.

This typically involves checking your reports and policies, or potentially even an onsite deep dive into your systems, processes, and how you handle complaints.

If they find any material breaches of enforceable paragraphs during said audit, they may initiate legal proceedings which may result in serious penalties under RG 271, including fines up to $11 Million.

So how hard is it to achieve compliance and create this report?

The key to successful compliance lies in the proactive management of complaint data throughout the year.

This involves not just the collection and storage of data but also ensuring it adheres to the detailed guidelines set by the ASIC IDR data reporting handbook.

Companies must recognise that this isn’t just an end-of-year reporting task, but an ongoing process that needs to integrate seamlessly into their daily operations.

Submitting an ASIC RG 271 report that is compliant with all 100 business rules isn’t easy.

When you need to check all 100 business rules against every, single, complaint record in your system… it gets very complex, very quickly.

Here are a few examples:

• If a complaint is open, you're not allowed to have a “closed date” attached. But when you're working with a spreadsheet that your staff updates manually, it's very easy for mistakes to creep in.
  
  
• Another requirement is that you can nominate up to 3 different “outcomes” for a complaint.
  
  An example of an “outcome” could be an apology or a monetary remedy like a refund. If the complaint outcome was an apology or explanation, ASIC states that you can’t identify any other outcome - like a monetary remedy for example - on that same complaint. That’s a very common mistake we've seen in the industry.

These might seem like minor details. But if just one row of your complaints data breaks a single rule, ASIC will reject the entire report, forcing you to find and fix every complaint.

And the cycle repeats until every row meets all 100 business rules …

If your company captures complaints in a simple spreadsheet or register… You’re at risk.

If your company captures and processes complaints in a spreadsheet or register, chances are you’re at risk.

A spreadsheet or register can’t enforce the 100 ASIC RG 271 business rules throughout the complaints management process - from capture to close.

Instead, it will capture whatever information it’s given, with no compliance intelligence.

And if you’re going to put low-quality data in, that means that come February 29th you and your team are going to have to manually clean up all of your non-compliant data.

If your spreadsheet or register is not enforcing these 100 business rules, you have two choices. Either train your staff on all these rules so they don't put invalid data in, or clean up the data at reporting time.

Neither option is practical or viable.

How does Complaints Pro address the issue for Australian Financial Services companies?

Complaints Pro has all 100 ASIC RG 271 data reporting business rules, built into every stage of the complaints management process.

This means that Complaints Pro will not let you put non-compliant data in.

And when you have to report to ASIC, your fully compliant data is ready to go at the click of a button. You can rest assured it will pass ASIC’s deep validation test without hassle.

Phew! How many hours of your team's time did that save!?

Are you ready for ASIC's February 29th RG 271 reporting date?

Time is running out.

Complaints Pro has been designed to solve RG 271 Reporting to ASIC and RG 271 compliance out of the box.

To see how we can get you compliant in 1 week, contact one of our RG 271 compliance experts today.

It's really not that hard when you have the right tools.

Speak To An RG 271 Expert

In a quick conversation, we'll discuss your approach to managing RG 271, show you how that compares to other similar Financial Services companies, and demonstrate how Complaints Pro will streamline your processes.