What is an obligations register?

At a high level, an obligation register lists all the legislation, regulation, codes, standard conditions, good conduct obligations and contract obligations the business has agreed to abide by. It then drills down into specific actionable steps and lists the controls for ensuring compliance with those steps. 

The obligations register should then feed into your compliance assurance plan or calendar which describes the actions that need to occur each month across the entire business to ensure compliance is maintained.

How to build an obligations register

There are three options for creating your own obligations register.

• You do all the hard work You can build one from scratch by attending Strategi Institute’s Closing the Gaps course to understand the legislation, regulation, code, and good conduct obligations that apply to those who provide regulated financial advice. If you don’t already hold a financial services Level 5 qualification, then you would also complete the New Zealand Certificate in Financial Services (Level 5) V2 or build the equivalent to it. This ensures you know the operational standards required to be met on a daily basis to provide regulated financial advice. Once you have the base knowledge, you can start researching the relevant legislation, regulation, and code to build up the list of obligations.
• We do all the hard work Strategi has developed a number of different obligation registers to suit FMCA (Financial Markets Conduct Act) licensed businesses. These are available for a modest fee and you can then customise the template or engage us to work alongside you to customise it together. Contact us for details.
• Use our FAP Kit This kit contains an obligation register suitable for financial advice providers (FAPs), in addition to an operations manual, guidance notes and a range of useful templates. This is definitely the best value for money solution as the obligations register is included in the FAP kit price.