Technical Working Group Minutes 21 October 2020

Attendee list

Action list (new or carried forward)

Closed action items 

1    Meeting objectives and priorities (Daniel Hunt)

Daniel Hunt welcomed members of the group and confirmed the meeting objectives.

Note changes in membership

NAB – Chandeesha de Silva replaces Parth Desai

ASIC – David Bahamonde replaces Saket Narayan

2    APRA’s Strategy and data priorities (Daniel Hunt, Michael Murphy)

Daniel Hunt reflected on the impacts of COVID-19 on both APRA and industry and the significant response made across the board to address the global pandemic.  He noted that these impacts were considered in APRA’s Strategy and APRA Connect was confirmed as a key enabler to support APRA’s data needs. 

Whilst the project has been shuttered a small team has continued work with the software partner Vizor to progress the core system build.

Michael Murphy updated the group on APRA’s data priorities and the most recent need to focus on understanding the impact of COVID-19 crisis on entities. He provided an overview of data collections going forward. Whilst the project has been shuttered APRA has continued to consult with industry.  DII, PHI, Super and ADI Credit Quality and Operational Risk collections are being designed for implementation on APRA Connect, they will not go live on D2A.

Consultations have been in-line with the principles to collect more granular data, through greater automation and fit-for-purpose submission channels. Future consultations will leverage the test environment for APRA Connect however current consultations continue to be iterative.

3    Revised approach for APRA Connect (Daniel Hunt, Jane Coad)

Daniel Hunt and Jane Coad gave an overview of the APRA Connect project to enable future data collections. Key points: 

• APRA Connect is a key enabler of future data collections and remains aligned to APRA’s priority to transform data-enabled decision-making. 
   
• Whilst the project was shuttered, a core team continued to work on the system build and testing.
   
• APRA is beginning a 3-month re-plan exercise during which the APRA Connect project will adapt and align project deliverables and timelines to consider APRA’s own readiness and business priorities as well as the industry readiness to ensure a clear and achievable approach and timeline

A proposed timeline and approach were shared with key dates being:

• June 2021 – APRA Connect test environment live
   
• September 2021 – Commencement of APRA Connect with all entities submitting entity information as well as Super and PHI data collections
   
• March 2022 – New ADI collections and the capability for FAR
   
• Timing of migration of ADI current D2A collections to APRA Connect remains undecided. 

4. Engagement with industry – open discussion

Daniel Hunt invited open discussion on the briefing and proposed approach for APRA Connect. 

Key points of discussion:

• Desire for test environment to be available as early as possible to enable testing
   
• The desired level of support needed for Superannuation industry, especially as the superannuation collection itself is also new
   
• Test data for use in the test environment – it was noted that superannuation is new so will not have any current data for testing, the test environment will be like production with full security
   
• Early communication wherever possible to ensure industry has time for readiness activities
   
• Upgrades are planned for D2A as it will be in place for an extended time period for current collections
   
• All revised or new collections will go live in APRA Connect

5. Other Business

There was no other business. 

The date for the next TWG meeting will be confirmed by email. Cadence of meetings is expected to be monthly from 2021.