APRA today announced that the start date for their revised outsouring approach (discussed here) would be pushed back from 1 January 2007 to 1 April 2007. For details, see here (banks), here (general insurance) or here (life assurance).

Why is this? APRA do not seem to say, but my best guess is that the insurers are not ready and were not going to be in a position to state that their existing outsourcing arrangements were in “general compliance” with the new standards. For the banks, this is unlikely, given the paucity of the changes, but, as the application to the insurers is new, this was always going to be a big step.

If anyone would like to let me know otherwi

se, please do.