The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, announced the launch of DTCC’s Insurance & Retirement Services’ (I&RS) Producer Authorization (PAR) service, “a standardized method for insurance vendors and distributors to communicate with carriers to verify producers’ authorization that is mandatory to sell insurance products.”
PAR deploys synchronous messages, “allowing distributors and vendors to ping carriers instantly to certify producer credentials, streamlining processes and increasing operational efficiencies.”
Today, financial advisors are required “by regulation to be properly licensed, appointed and trained to solicit and sell insurance products.”
PAR helps to standardize and automate this process “by enabling distributors to properly validate producers’ credentials and qualifications in real time in order to understand whether individuals are permissioned to sell certain products in specific jurisdictions.”
This eliminates the need for firms “to adopt and manage multiple proprietary processes and provides producers with the ability to proactively take corrective actions and lower Not in Good Order application submissions.”
Justin Schwartz, Executive Director, Product Management for Wealth Management Services at DTCC, said:
“There was an industry need for a unified service, that provides real-time producer data, and we are pleased to now offer PAR. In the development of the offering, we focused on building out a standardized ‘can sell’ API message platform that improves client and advisor experience by providing increased confidence in authorized producers. We look forward to continuing to enhance our services to best meet the evolving needs of our clients and the industry.”
PAR leverages the ACORD Next-Generation Digital Standards (NGDS) UC-251 “Verify Producer Can Sell Annuities” User Story, “providing enhanced licensing, appointments and training credentials that permits distributors to submit carrier message requests while simultaneously allowing carriers to determine if producers are authorized to advance new business applications.”
PAR can be utilized at any point during “the solicitation/sales process, and the message statuses are readily available via API.”
Doug Massey, EVP Sales at Hexure said:
“There has been a need for a new insurance industry standard around real-time authorizations. This innovative solution has facilitated increased standardization in our messaging capabilities by streamlining processes which allows us to confirm a producers’ ability to sell a product for multiple carriers by accessing a single data point. We are excited to offer this service to our partners.”
