2021 has been a busy and productive year for The LAB team as we have invested more resources than ever before into product enhancements and the accelerated delivery of our ambitious product roadmap.

As our customers grappled with the ongoing challenges of COVID-19 and the associated surge in account applications as financial markets recovered, our expert teams have been focused on making our product even easier, even safer and keeping you one step ahead of new compliance regulations.

As we approach the end of the year, we wanted to take the opportunity to round up all the exciting and valuable product enhancements that we've made throughout the year.

It's been a busy year, so what did we do...

We made things safer:

Identity theft went up 55% during the global pandemic according to the ACCC. Our increased anti-fraud measures, including our new VPN detection, means your internal teams can quickly view and asses risks and inconsistencies with new applications.

Read more about why Why VPN Detection Matters in Digital Customer Acquisition.

We streamlined digital reverification:

Reducing the need for manual handling of secondary ID sources to increase accuracy and verification pass rates.

This year, LAB Group developed and released Electronic Identity Reverification. Sitting within the LAB Application Manager, this product removes the need for manual handling of secondary ID sources, leading to higher verification pass rates and therefore higher fulfilment rates. Previously, when Electronic Identity Verification failed, secondary ID sources would have to be handled manually to progress the opening of a new account, which generally means higher failure rates. Find out more about our Reverification service through the LAB Application Manager here:

We enhanced dynamic verification:

Allowing us to leverage the Australian Government's Document Verification Service to further boost application pass rates.

We've enhanced LABform to allow for the dynamic adjustment of an electronic ID verification process based on factors such as age. This enhancement significantly boost application pass rates and reduces the number of applications needing manual processing by leveraging the Australian Government's Document Verification Service. To find out more about how we've recently added tangible value to a customer through this product, click here:

We gave you greater control:

Whatever your business rules, our highly configurable Engine will perform the actions your compliance and onboarding teams require

Your business processes and risk assessment rules will vary and are not one-size-fits-all. We've given more control to tailor and customise your business processes and risk assessment rules through our highly configurable Engine. Whatever your business rules are, our Engine will perform the actions your compliance and onboarding teams need, putting you in complete control of the client onboarding journey.

We enabled multi registry support:

We are now registry agnostic in our Onboarding process and can support clients using multiple registries for different funds or sub-brands.

Speak with your Account Executive to discuss how we can meet your multi registry requirements.

We ensured you stayed compliant:

Introduced our standardised DDO solution as a value-added uplift to our core offering. Speak with our team to add this to your Account Management team to discuss your specific requirements and implementations.

This year, we rolled out a standardised DDO solution as a value-added uplift to our core offering, to save you time, resources and cost per application. ASIC's Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) went live in October this year, significantly altering the compliance landscape. This new legislation obligates financial product issuers and distributors to maintain a consumer-centric approach to the design and distribution of products. While these are intended to help consumers obtain appropriate financial products, they also add administrative complexity. You can add LAB's standardised DDO uplift to your existing subscription to:

• Conveniently manage your new obligations through your customer onboarding process using LABform and LAB Application Manager
• Seamlessly connect into LAB Group integrations and partnerships

We increased our connectivity and automation:

We've created more value for you in our ecosystem by increasing our connectivity and data flow automation through strategic partnerships... with more to announce in the coming months!

This year we have focused on integrating our platform with key financial market infrastructure providers. By increasing our connectivity and data flow automation through these strategic partnerships, making the end-to-end onboarding process far more efficient, scalable and cost-effective. An example of these strategic partnerships is our seamless integration with FinClear's HIN platform for institutional and retail securities brokers. This integration allows FinClear to extract AML/KYC and account opening information from a LABform application and automatically create an account record, making the end-to-end onboarding process far more efficient, scalable and cost-effective. This strategic integration adds value to FinClear users by:

• Allowing for quicker trading for a client
• Enables flexible trading and investing
• Reducing the time and risk involved with manual data inputs between systems

We invested in new relationships:

We attracted a range of new partners and customers to our platform.

As we built out our product suite and integrations in 2021, we attracted a range of new partners and customers to our platform. This included one of Australia's preeminent investment and wealth management firms, Shaw and Partners, leading wholesale broker, AUSIEX, and one of the world's leading providers of financial services to institutional investors, State Street Corporation. Attracting organisations of this calibre to our platform reflects the value we can add across several verticals throughout the financial services industry, providing us with a solid footing to achieve further business development growth in the year ahead.

Investing in the Future

The need for our digital onboarding platform has never been stronger, and our investment in delivering this has never been higher. To ensure our delivery matches your expectations, we have an ambitious set of strategic initiatives and enhancements under development which we plan to release in 2022.

The major themes of our strategic roadmap reflect our focus on:Anti-fraud and Verification

• Email Age verification
• Suspicious Activity Alerts
• Biometrics
• Trusted Digital ID Framework
• Open Banking and Bank Account Verification
• Complex Entity and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) Verification

Reporting and Data

• Internal Business Intelligence
• Customer Dashboard delivering insights and empowering action

Strategic Partnerships and Integrations

• Several to be announced in coming months

Continued product enhancements to LABform and Application ManagerRegulatory and Compliance

• Compliance Radar provides up-to-date industry insights - click here to view:

On behalf of LAB Group and its leadership team, we'd like to thank you, our partners, stakeholders and customers, for your continued support of LAB and our rapidly growing business in 2021. We look forward to adding more value to your organisations and your clients in 2022.