Origo blog comments

What makes the new RDR Remuneration Statement Standard different?

Posted by Victoria Green on Friday 27 July 2012 at 10:53

With less than six months before the changes under the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) come in to effect, how is technology helping the industry to not only comply, but to thrive in the new world?

Supporting change
We have been working with organisations of all shapes and sizes to update our existing Standards including Quotes and New Business Submission and Tracking so that they comply with the new RDR regulations. In addition, we’ve also developed our new RDR Remuneration Statement Standard that will also play an important role in helping to keep business processes RDR compliant.

The Draft Version RDR Remuneration Statement Standard was first made available to the industry back in May 2011 – giving back office system and software suppliers, providers and platforms the time to work with the Standard and make the necessary changes to their systems ahead of the end of year deadline.

The Remuneration Standard enables the automation of payment information from providers/ platforms to advisers via their back office systems, providing firms with the ability to electronically receive and reconcile payment information, while also meeting their new compliance reporting obligations.

Softly, softly
It is worth noting that the importance of this Standard and its older relative, EDI Commission Transfer, largely goes unnoticed by most. EDI Commission has been working successfully in the background for about 20 years – and, in eCommerce years, that’s a hard-working, robust messaging system.

There are however, some key differences between the new Remuneration Statement Standard and EDI Commission Standard. In summary, the RDR Remuneration Statement message:
(1) contains much more information than in the current EDI Commission – 26 more business elements in fact!
(2) allows for different firm and agency structures providing the necessary information to match each individual payment
(3) incorporates a variety of different charging and commission shapes as well as handling commission debts and clawback.

As more providers/ platforms and software suppliers adopt the new Remuneration Standard, advisers and their support staff will see these differences and start to realise the benefits it brings. To help our community better understand these benefits, our paper “RDR Remuneration Statement Explained”, is available to download to all.