NAVA Inc. (Association for Insured Retirement Solutions), and the Financial Services Institute (FSI), an advocacy and membership organization for independent broker-dealers and independent financial advisors, recently announced a strategic alliance to extend NAVA's straight-through processing (STP) initiative to the independent annuity distribution channel.
STP is an industry-backed initiative that has established a comprehensive set of standards for electronically managing new annuity business to benefit consumers, insurers, distributors, and regulators. The alliance further strengthens the STP goal of creating a universal environment for the simple, transparent, compliant, flexible, and cost-effective sale and administration of annuities.
NAVA and the FSI will work together to augment the STP standards by soliciting input from independent broker-dealers and their affiliated financial advisors. Additional objectives include prioritizing a phased implementation plan and working with members to facilitate an implementation approach that will allow for broad STP adoption among FSI members.
There are 24 sets of STP standards, which address a number of key areas, including suitability, electronic forms, privacy, and records management.
Source: NAVA
