The Financial Services Council (FSC) and its members have developed templates and industry data standards in preparation for design and distribution obligations (DDO) laws that will take effect on October 5.

FSC says the templates for target market determinations (TMDs) and industry data standards will help product issuers and distributors comply with the new regime, which stems from a recommendation made by the Hayne royal commission.

“The DDO regime requires financial product issuers to identify a target market for each of their products and share information with third parties, including financial advisers, to understand the consumers who have purchased their products,” FSC CEO Sally Loane said.

“Standardisation of information and data is important to the success of the DDO regime.

“Given the potential for complexity and associated cost from hundreds of different templates and data standards, the FSC has developed templates which will assist companies write TMDs for the products they issue.”

She says the industry data standards will help with alignment and standardisation as well as facilitate the necessary flow of information between financial advisers, platforms and product issuers.

The data standards will be available for free while the TMD templates will be licensed to non-FSC members.

Click here for more on the TMD templates and industry data standards.