Financial Markets Authority gears up to police finance industry

FMA looking for an integrated solution to support functions such as granting licences and managing communications

The Financial Markets Authority, created in May last year to oversee the operation of New Zealand’s financial markets, is gearing up with ICT to support its contacts with the companies operating in the market.

Proposed applications will support functions ranging from routine granting of licences, through management of communications with entities in the market to managing intelligence indicating possible non-compliance with regulations and enforcing compliance.

The FMA says it would prefer an integrated solution meeting all requirements, either from one supplier or a prime contractor handling relationships with subcontractors. “Part responses, or responses to any one element in isolation, are unlikely to be considered for the RFP shortlist,” it says in a request for expression of interest (RFI) document.

The heart of the system will be an “identity relationship management” system to “capture all interactions (contacts, complaints, tips, queries, etc.) with the entities and people that FMA interacts with and that fall under its jurisdiction. A case management system is to handle both routine issuing of licences and investigation of anomalies.

The authority specifically signals that it will consider open source solutions, but warns that it is already using a proprietary document and records management solution and Microsoft Office, which is being upgraded to the 2010 version. Document Management is being upgraded from Hummingbird to a content server from Open Text, which acquired Hummingbird in 2006.

Responses to the RFI are requested by Thursday.