Keep up-to-date with the key developments affecting the financial services sector.

Key areas this month include:

Open innovation

The Government has decided to establish a consumer data right (CDR). This will enable consumers to give trusted third parties access to data that various institutions hold about them. This may affect banks (“open banking”) and other financial institutions. The Government will shortly consult on CDR implementation and the affected sectors.

AML/CFT

The AML/CFT supervisors have issued a statement about the timeframe available to implement the CDD requirements that came into force on 9 July 2021 relating to companies, limited partnership, and overseas limited partnership with nominee directors, shareholders, or general partners. They have further issued updated or new guidance on electronic identity verification, redacted birth certificates, and country risk. 

Payment service providers

Inland Revenue is consulting on a proposal enabling it to collect bulk datasets from payment service providers on an ongoing, regular basis (as opposed to the current ad hoc regime). A “dataset” is a package of data relating to a particular business. This would be aggregated data used to verify business income (with the details of the business’s individual customers not being identifiable). 

Insurance

An exposure draft of the Interim Solvency Standards has been released for feedback. They are intended to apply to almost all insurers from early 2022, for a period of about three years. 

Financial market infrastructures

The Government has issued its plan for implementing the Financial Market Infrastructures Act 2021. It is consulting on standards for FMIs, and on the identification of systemically important FMIs.

NZX

The NZX has launched a final consultation on its proposed Mid-Point Order Book.