The January 2016 deadline for Solvency II compliance passed without major incident, but looks like the end of the beginning with most insurance companies and asset managers making the deadline, but many continuing to work on aspects of the regulation not only to ensure compliance, but also to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs and gain competitive advantage.
The state of play on Solvency II, manual workarounds employed in the rush to compliance, and outstanding challenges that once resolved will smooth the compliance process were discussed during this week’s A-Team Group webinar covering the run-up to Solvency II compliance and the pain points still to be tackled. The webinar was moderated by A-Team Group chief content officer Andrew Delaney and joined by Volker Lainer, vice president of product management at GoldenSource; Lowell Fryman, practice principal at Collibra; and Hubert Deroubaix, head of European regulatory products at Interactive Data.
The webinar participants agreed that while insurers met the compliance deadline, their methods varied greatly and many are now working to streamline Solvency II processes to reduce the cost of compliance. Manual collection and aggregation of data for Solvency II look-through and reporting needs to be automated, CIC and Nace codes need clarification – although these codes did not prove as problematic as first expected – and effective data management and governance programmes must be established to ensure the right data is identified and managed for compliance and, longer term, the benefit of the business.
On a more positive note, the webinar speakers said the tripartite template provides good, but not complete, guidance on the data needed for Solvency II look-through, and that the need for insurers to build robust internal data management frameworks to achieve compliance should allow them to revisit relationships with asset managers, weed out any disadvantageous arrangements, reduce capital requirements and improve competitive stance.
To find out more about:
- Levels of compliance with Solvency II
- Solutions for outstanding pain points
- Implementing data governance
- Benefits of Solvency II compliance
Listen to the A-Team Group webinar here.
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