" The majority are taking steps to increase their understanding of the regulation, although there’s still plenty of scope for improvement."
Between February and April, 245 users of Intelliflo’s Intelligent Office suite of business management tools completed a survey testing their knowledge about the new regulation.
The results showed around one in five (18%) reached ‘expert’ status, scoring between 90% and 100%, and 58% reached ‘pro’ status, scoring between 60% and 90%.
However just under a quarter (24%) were still at the ‘rookie’ stage, scoring between 0% and 59%.
Intelliflo is now running a detailed readiness assessment, enabling iO users to quickly asses how far their systems already meet the new regulation and which areas need attention.
Intelliflo's GDPR toolkit, which launched in February, also provides advisers with a detailed overview of all aspects of the new regulation as well as advice and checklists to guide them to take appropriate action to achieve compliance.
Rob Walton, Intelliflo’s chief operating officer, commented: “The message about needing to take action to comply with the GDPR is definitely getting through to advisers. Last September we found that around 9% weren’t even aware of the new regulation. The knowledge survey shows that around 99% now do know about it and the majority are taking steps to increase their understanding of the regulation, although there’s still plenty of scope for improvement.
“We’ve created tools to give our customers a practical and effective way of engaging with the new requirements. They are particularly useful for advisers who are working alone or in small firms as they don’t have the resources of a team of support staff or on-site compliance experts. However, they are just as much at risk of incurring fines or being sued by disgruntled clients as the large adviser firms, should a data breach happen.”
