APRA Connect release notes

New Capital Framework (NCF) update release in APRA Connect 
 

The following matters have now been resolved in regard to the NCF collection: 
 

ARS_110_0

Correct calculations for a range of derived fields

A range of derived fields were incorrectly calculating, these have been addressed; full details are listed in the Change Logs, which can be found here.

Section C Risk Ratios

1. Countercyclical capital buffer – the reporting standard has been updated to clarify that the dollar risk-weighted amount of an ADIs private sector credit exposures should be reported in column 2. To align with this change, the column heading has been amended from Exposure to RWA.
2. Countercyclical capital buffer – this section is to be completed by all entities. From 1 January 2023 the Australian jurisdictional CCyB is equal to 1 per cent. As per the public taxonomy artefacts, for the Per cent column, please enter decimals to 4 decimal places. For example, for an Australian CCyB of an 1%, please enter 0.0100.

ARS_110_0: Section D Memorandum items - Non-defaulted exposures 

1. Eligible Provisions – 1.2 Partial write-offs – item removed in APRA Connect to align to the reporting standard

ARS_110_0: Section D Memorandum items - Non-defaulted exposures

1. Eligible Provisions – 1.3 Discounts on defaulted assets – item removed in APRA Connect to align to the reporting standard 
    

ARS 112 and ARS 113 
 

During the parallel run for the September 2022 reporting period, APRA turned off the validation rule that checked the combination of allowed enumerations in ARS 112.0 Capital Adequacy - Standardised Approach to Credit Risk and ARS 113.0 Capital Adequacy - Internal Ratings-based Approach to Credit Risk.

For the December 2022 reporting period, APRA has decided this rule will be disabled for initial submissions. APRA will perform checks on the combinations post submission and will contact the entity separately.

A link to the draft new taxonomy artefact can be found here.  
 

Automated Overdue Notifications – Turned Off

In response to industry concerns regarding the inappropriate issuing of overdue notices from APRA Connect, APRA will temporarily suspend their automated generation for all APRA Connect collections.

As an interim solution, APRA will manually issue notifications when collections are genuinely overdue. This manual process will be in place until APRA and the APRA Connect vendor have resolved the systems performance issues. 
 

Updates to Validations Rules

Details of these can be found in the relevant Change Logs, which can be found here.

New Capital Framework released in External Test Environment

The following collections are now available to test in the External Test Environment:

• Reporting Standard ARS 110.0 Capital Adequacy - draft taxonomy artefacts
• Reporting Standard ARS 112.0 Capital Adequacy: Standardised Approach to Credit Risk - revised draft taxonomy artefacts
• Reporting Standard ARS 113.0 Capital Adequacy: Internal Ratings-based Approach to Credit Risk - revised draft taxonomy artefacts
• Reporting Standard ARS 115.0 Capital Adequacy: Advanced Measurement Approaches to Operational Risk - final taxonomy artefacts

The new draft taxonomy artefacts can be found on the Taxonomy Artefacts page.

Updates to validation rules 
 

Details of these can be found in the relevant Change Log, which can be found here.

Performance

Various system updates have been implemented enabling better performance and a more user-friendly experience

New Capital Framework (NCF) update release in APRA Connect

The following matters have now been resolved in regard to the NCF collection:

ARS_110_0

Correct calculations for a range of derived fields

1. A range of derived fields were incorrectly calculating, these have been addressed; full details are listed in the Change Logs, which can be found here.

Section C Risk Ratios 

1. Countercyclical capital buffer – the reporting standard has been updated to clarify that the dollar risk-weighted amount of an ADIs private sector credit exposures should be reported in column 2. To align with this change, the column heading has been amended from Exposure to RWA.
2. Countercyclical capital buffer – this section is to be completed by all entities. From 1 January 2023 the Australian jurisdictional CCyB is equal to 1 per cent. As per the public taxonomy artefacts, for the Per cent column, please enter decimals to 4 decimal places. For example, for an Australian CCyB of an 1%, please enter 0.0100.

ARS_110_0: Section D Memorandum items - Non-defaulted exposures  

1. Eligible Provisions – 1.2 Partial write-offs – item removed in APRA Connect to align to the reporting standard

ARS_110_0: Section D Memorandum items - Non-defaulted exposures

1. Eligible Provisions – 1.3 Discounts on defaulted assets – item removed in APRA Connect to align to the reporting standard

ARS 112 and ARS 113

During the parallel run for the September 2022 reporting period, APRA turned off the validation rule that checked the combination of allowed enumerations in ARS 112.0 Capital Adequacy - Standardised Approach to Credit Risk and ARS 113.0 Capital Adequacy - Internal Ratings-based Approach to Credit Risk.

For the December 2022 reporting period, APRA has decided this rule will be disabled for initial submissions. APRA will perform checks on the combinations post submission and will contact the entity separately.

A link to the draft new taxonomy artefact can be found here. 

Automated Overdue Notifications – Turned Off 
In response to industry concerns regarding the inappropriate issuing of overdue notices from APRA Connect, APRA will temporarily suspend their automated generation for all APRA Connect collections. 

As an interim solution, APRA will manually issue notifications when collections are genuinely overdue. This manual process will be in place until APRA and the APRA Connect vendor have resolved the systems performance issues.

Updates to Validations Rules 
Details of these can be found in the relevant Change Logs, which can be found here.

Other key changes 
 

• New SDT artefects and change log published
• Functionality added to allow regulatory reporting contact roles to be added to corporate profile for non-operating holding companies and wholesale funders. 

Exporting validation rules and explanations into Excel 

While uploading data entities may encounter validation error messages. To help analyse these errors an MS Excel export option is now available from the Validation Issues page. This will enable entities to sort and filter through large numbers of rule failures associated with a submission. Additionally, for warning rules that require explanations, the standard MS Excel template containing these explanations can be uploaded into a submission, greatly simplifying the submission process. More information about this change can be found on the APRA Connect guide. (Section 6.10.2)

SDT historical data submissions - SRS 705.1 and SRS 251.0 

Implementation of rule constraints to allow submission of historical data. Please refer to relevant Change logs and APRA Connect taxonomy artefacts for your specific industry. 

MyGov – Single User Name 

The system has been updated to cater for the scenario where a user’s legal name can be a single name. 

Performance & Error Handling  

Various system updates and error handling configurations have been implemented enabling better performance and a more user-friendly experience.    

Limiting the number of validation errors that are triggered 

Once 200 validation errors have been triggered within a submission, the system will stop validating data and notify the user of the failure to process the submission.  

Changes to the Private Health Insurance and selected  Superannuation validation rules.   
 

Please refer to relevant Change logs and APRA Connect taxonomy artefacts for your specific industry.   

ARS 115.0 Operational Risk 

ARS 115.0 Operational Risk is now available for ADI’s to test in the APRA Connect test environment 

SRS 605 – Re-submissions  

Requests for resubmission of the SRS 605.0 RSE Structure will be assessed and approved manually 

Large Submissions

A number of entitles have experienced difficulties while submitting large amounts of data to APRA. One of the changes to address these issues implemented in this release is to process returns offline.

When you submit your return, APRA Connect will prompt you to continue with the submission and then: 

• For small amounts of data, provide immediate feedback on the result of the submission in the form of the usual validation rules (including the validation rule that prevents automatic submission); or 
• For large amounts of data, process ‘offline’, allowing you to continue to prepare and submit other returns. Once the return is processed you will receive an email either confirming the return has been submitted or there are validation rules to be addressed.  

Note: along with the implementation of offline processing, APRA recommends that entities submitting large amounts of data should not opt-in to the validation rule that prevents automatic submission.