We’re the experts in financial services compliance training.

GRC Solutions’ expert team shares decades of combined experience and knowledge of the financial services industry. We’ve served the mutual banks for over 10 years and possess a thorough understanding of the landscape and its trends. We work closely with clients, customising courses and training to suit the specific needs of different organisations. 

Our products and services cover a wide range of financial services activities, including banking, superannuation, insurance, managed investments, options, derivatives, securities, brokering, futures, and other financial investments.  

We understand the gravity of punishments and fines in the case of noncompliance, especially for financial services institutions.  

Cybercrime, money laundering and more – there’s no room for complacency.

A current and prominent issue for businesses in the financial services sector is the frequency and dynamism of regulation in recent years. From the introduction of the Corporations Act 2001 to the establishment of the Financial Services Regime (FS) and the launch of the Future of Financial Advice (FOFA), Financial Services providers face a more complex set of compliance requirements than ever before. 

These haven’t been implemented without reason, though. As technologies, organisations and their systems grow in complexity, so does financial crime. These crimes occur in several ways – Cybersecurity, Anti-Money Laundering, Privacy breaches, Proliferation Financing and much more.  

Cybercrime is rampant across myriad industries today; unfortunately, recent events have illustrated how a lack of preparedness can result in turmoil. Notably, Optus’ catastrophic data leak revealed just how vulnerable companies are to hackers and cyber-criminals. This was preceded by the Medibank scandal, where hackers stole the health records of 9.7 million Australians. It’s no coincidence the Cybersecurity imperative has risen to the top of priority lists worldwide. 

The recent Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index revealed the need for continued vigilance in the fight against corruption and money laundering in Australia, despite being widely regarded as one of the least corrupt countries in the world. After a swathe of promises and delays, Tranche 2 legislation is back on the drawing board in 2023. The passing of Tranche 2 would greatly strengthen Australia’s AML/CTF framework – and bring forth a wave of new concerns for financial services organisations. 

Customer and workplace fraud also continue to affect financial organisations. Annual fraud losses sit at well over half a billion dollars in the Australian financial sector. This considered, it’s essential that staff are educated on fraud typologies and modalities, despite the presence of fraud detection software. 

We’re here to help.  

This may seem overwhelming, but we assure you: it doesn’t have to be. GRC Solutions are a leading provider in financial services compliance training and have been trusted by mutual banks and various other financial-services institutions for over a decade. Our training is composed by lawyers and subject matter experts, built by software and UX experts, and supported by our renowned Client Services Team. 

Contact us today to see how we can protect your business against financial crime.  

Case Study: Unity Bank

The Brief  

In 2022, the Customer Owned Banking Association introduced a new version of the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice (COBCOP). The new Code represented a significant change from the existing Code and its adoption by subscribers involved a number of challenges. All the subscribers to the Code are clients of GRC Solutions, and many of them have for years relied on our training and supporting products. Accordingly, we needed to be involved from an early stage in supporting our clients through this change.  

 Unity Bank, a significant mutual bank based in Sydney, was one of the first businesses to make informal contact with GRC Solutions seeking an understanding of what support we would be able to develop and provide to help them comply with their obligations under the new Code.  

The Challenge  

Discussion with industry participants revealed that the scope of the necessary support was large – our clients needed: support to understand the nature of the changes and to build the knowledge and talent necessary to develop internal processes; check-ins to ensure businesses were on the right track; and training at multiple levels in their business.   

It became clear that clients would require a wholistic training project covering multiple aspects of the regime and the differing interests of multiple areas within their businesses.  

The changes that needed to be addressed were:  

• New and more detailed requirements around the information customer-facing staff provide to customers  
• More stringent requirements relating to the way staff assist customers with certain transactions  
• Major changes to procedures in forming consumer and small business loan contracts – in particular relating to loan guarantees  
• A greater focus on support for customers experiencing vulnerability – including a major increase in the categories of “vulnerability”  

• Specific requirements relating to the management of customer accounts (for example, the handling of credit card over-drawings) that require significant changes to bank’s IT and consequential training of staff  
• Specific requirements around staff training.  

The wide-ranging nature of these changes meant that Code subscribers would need to modify their processes and training in a number of other areas of their core business, including:  

• Complaints handling  
• Activities regulated by the Credit Act and Code  
• The management of direct debits  
• The offer and sale of credit-related insurance products  
• The development of “accessible banking services”  
• The enforcement of debts  

Our client, Unity Bank, was one of the first to make informal contact with our Senior Relationship Manager, seeking consultation about what GRC Solutions would be able to do to support the Bank through this challenging process. We assured them and other industry members that our support would be holistic, providing training support to managers and customer-facing staff on all these areas of operation, as well as assisting in the business-wide implementation process.  

Two of the most challenging aspects of the project to introduce the new COBCOP to subscriber businesses were. :  

• the uncertainty of the start date, and  
• a lack of finality relating to what provisions would actually be included in the new Code   

The Project  

Given that aspects of the Code remained subject to this regulatory review, GRC Solutions support for the sector necessarily took a staged, progressive character, flagging significant proposed changes and undertaking awareness and updating activities in advance of rolling out the actual training products once final ACCC authorisation was granted.  

Project Design  

The Project Design responded to these challenges as follows:  

1. Bulletins 
2. Pre-introduction webinars 
3. Manuals 
4. Online training products for customer-facing staff 

Resources and research  

1. Focused Training 
2. Research 

The Roll Out  

The projected go-live date was 1 October 2022, and despite the constant delays in achieving regulatory sign-off of the new Code, this was not changed.  

As outlined above, this presented considerable challenges to Code subscribers in introducing new systems and practices within their businesses and to GRC Solutions in having our training support products ready in time to support their being fully Code-compliant by the deadline.  

Even though research and development of the new products entailed a considerable investment of time and expertise, we were able to roll out the COBCOP training in August, one week after the COBCOP Manual. 

One of the most significant project outcomes is the demonstration once again of GRC Solutions’ capacity to mobilise its resources to create a holistic response to an industry challenge, and to do so within a constricted timeframe.   

Businesses that have adopted the GRC Solutions’ suite of products are in excellent shape to meet their obligations and avoid censure. In particular, they are now able to ensure that their customer-facing staff and their direct managers are fully cognisant of their responsibilities.  

Feedback 

Veronica Salman, Legal & Compliance Manager at Unity Bank wrote to us to say:  

In a rapidly growing industry that is always inundated with new regulatory changes and limited internal resourcing, Unity Bank has always welcomed assistance from groups who understand the importance of collaboratively working together as we reach our common goal of meeting compliance obligations.  

 GRC Solutions has played a significant role in this process as it continuously strives to assist us in embedding new regulations and developing ongoing guidance materials which we find ourselves using in all processes of our day-to-day roles. In preparation to implement the updated COBCOP Code, GRC Solutions has greatly assisted us in preparing for the new Code requirements. With ongoing updates provided and the release of the new COBCOP manual, the Bank has been able to use this material to develop preliminary guidance for staff to prepare for the implementation of the new Code.