In the drive to reduce costs credit unions are looking at the cost of compliance. What are the options?

This is an on-going discussion in managing expenses : compliance has often been criticised as a cost centre rather than a profit centre. In reality, compliance and risk management are a "bet your business" function; they are required by APRA, ASIC and Austrac and other regulators so you can stay in business.

Whilst you don’t expect your compliance staff to show a direct profit you do expect them to perform their role efficiently and provide value to the rest of your organisation.

Whether your compliance functions are performed by dedicated full-time staff or shared with other roles it is important that you have a compliance plan. Without a plan and compliance processes no one knows how compliance is supposed to be managed in your organisation.

You can then look at whether your resources are being used effectively. Can the work be done in a better way? Can your processes be improved?

Can part of the compliance function be outsourced? For example you do need to keep on top of regulatory changes but you can get this information externally (eg Australian Regulatory Compliance Review).

And you’ll need your compliance program externally audited.

I’ll talk about these issues in more detail in later posts.