Blog

Compliance Challenges in South Africa

Article written by Howard Zev, Executive Vice President, Cura Software Solutions

Navigating South Africa’s compliance environment is an increasingly complex task. “There are already more than 100 Acts that companies need to comply with, including the likes of the new Companies Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act, as well as FICA and FAIS requirements. In addition, on average over the last ten years, around six new acts and amendments have affected the business arena in South Africa every month,” says Howard Zev of Cura Software Solutions.

In addition, the launch of King III and the imminent implementation of the new Companies Act have ensured that compliance has become a pressing imperative for CEOs and company officers, who face significant and growing risks in terms of their common law and statutory obligations to protect and serve the best interests of their companies.

“To lead their companies through the increasingly complex legislation CEOs and compliance officers need a solution that allows them to understand clearly and at a glance where the company is not complying and put corrective actions in place,” comments Zev. “In addition, such a solution must address the reporting requirements in terms of acts such as the NCA, FICA and FAIS, and serve as proof of compliance.”

Addressing the challenges

As South Africa’s largest governance, risk and compliance (GRC) software provider and regarded as one of the five global leaders in the GRC domain by Forrester Research and Gartner Research, Cura has been working with compliance officers of the leading JSE 100 companies for a number of years.

“Having implemented Cura for Compliance among these clients, we identified that one of the main challenges faced by compliance officers was the identification of relevant regulation and legislation, backed up by content that would be updated timeously with changes in acts and with simple language explanations that would address most standard compliance assessments that need to be undertaken within the organization,” explains Zev.

“Due to Cura’s existing powerful survey technology and integrated platform, creating a compliance solution that would address this challenge required very little development. It was more a matter of understanding the compliance process and best practice, configuring the solution accordingly, and marrying up with up-to-the minute legislative content and interpretation of Regulations.”

Powerful solutions

After almost a year of intensive research on the marketplace and customer requirements, a new compliance software solution, called CuraComply, was launched. It combines a world-class software platform developed by Cura with LexisNexis’ providing regularly updated Compliance Content, documentation, and high quality interpretation of laws, acts and regulations.

“The objective was to provide a streamlined solution that would simplify compliance for an individual company. As such, the software creates easy-to-understand electronic checklists of all acts and regulations,” explains Zev. “It further ranks the individually tailored checklist questions to be answered by a company’s compliance officer according to the officer’s priorities, and the appetite for compliance with certain pieces of legislation. After the survey is completed, the results are aggregated and reports on the company’s level of compliance, as well as automated recommendations and corrective actions to address non-compliant areas, are produced. This enables compliance officers to manage areas of non-compliance immediately and effectively.”
Market response Zev notes that the response from the market has been phenomenal.

“Some of the largest banks, insurance companies and mining businesses have signed on and have implemented the solution already, and many existing Cura customers are extending their use of the platform by now licensing the content too. It is certainly encouraging to see a growing number of companies addressing their corporate governance and compliance responsibilities proactively. It certainly bodes well for the future sustainability of corporate South Africa and Cura is proud to be playing a significant role in enabling companies to do so.”