Looking back on 2020 and forward to 2021

Julian Fenwick’s CEO Christmas message: The strangest of years! But we all achieved so much, and there is so much to look forward to in 2021.

To all our clients, friends and colleagues,

Thank you for your continued support throughout the year. The strangest of years! Those early days where we all felt off balance, needing to understand, and desperate for more information, are hopefully now fading memories. We are much more realistic now, battle-hardened, more professional: the “new normal” really has become the new normal. We are very grateful to all our clients who continue to provide us with interesting, challenging, and important work.  Despite setbacks, we are now looking forward to a New Year with optimism, and we hope to bring back some of the things we missed in 2020.

I am very proud of the team we have at GRC Solutions. Looking back over the year we managed to adapt very quickly. Most of our work is online and our team was already spread across a lot of locations, so we are used to various methods of remote communication and teamwork. Our clients also seemed to adapt very quickly too and there were many Zoom calls with kids and pets in the background and perhaps we got to know each other a little better for that.

Over the April to June period, our team produced a series of micro-learning modules designed to assist people in adapting to working from home. We made these available free to clients and non-clients. For us it was a great exercise in positivity and collaboration. Each week for nine weeks we released a new topic. In all we had over 30,000 people take up our offer to enrol in these courses and they are still available here.

In Australia, the pace of regulatory change did not slow too much. Discussion around changes to Responsible Lending and an increased focus on Protecting Vulnerable Customers kept us on our toes. For our financial services clients we kept up with our weekly Compliance Notes subscription service, and monthly publications Credit News & The Decisive Board.

In New Zealand we saw the changes to the NZ Privacy Act 2020and increased focus on online compliance training more generally. Information about our updated courses is here.

The US also saw a heightened awareness on data privacy, AML and cybersecurity, and a range of other compliance training issues. In June 2020, The Department of Justice released new guidance on compliance programs looking for increased attention to job-role fit for training. Information on our US content library is here.

Our work in Asia continued as we launched a series of custom-built eLearning courses for new clients there. Whilst people were stuck at home, they stoically pushed on. Our Salt® Adaptive platform and compliance learning management system is now available in 23 languages enabling us to support a much wider range of jurisdictions. Many clients are now using the platform to create or customise their own eLearning.

This year we were also very grateful to receive acknowledgement for our great online compliance training client collaborations. We won two Platinum and two Gold Awards at LearnX Live! for our compliance courses, and more recently received recognition in the Regulation Asia Awards for excellence in compliance training.

In 2021 we hope to bring back our popular Compliance Forums. Normally held twice a year around the country, these events have always served as a great way to stay up to date and network with your peers. We also hope to return to normal formats for our Responsible Manager Workshops, although the popularity of the online format for these does mean that we may continue to offer them that way as well. One of the things COVID taught us!

There are also a number of financial crime and compliance conferences we hope to attend. We look forward to a time when we can catch up with you in person again.

As I look back on the extraordinary challenges we faced in the past year, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to our clients, team members, collaborators and partners who worked with us and supported us with positivity and optimism to make this year the best it could be.

From all of us at GRC Solutions we would like to wish you and your family a happy and safe Christmas, knowing that 2021 brings great promise and new beginnings.

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Merry Christmas

Julian Fenwick