As far as we are aware the last registrar to be accredited by auDA was in 2016.
Since then no one has been able to complete the application and accreditation process but not for a lack of trying!
Above.com made its 1st auDA accreditation application to auDA in June 2015 (7 years ago).
Here is a confirmation from Lujia Chen (former auDA staff)
On 18/06/2015 11:56 AM, Lujia Chen wrote:
Hello Andrew,
Thanks for talking with me this morning about your application to become a .au accredited registrar…
Above.com was working with Lujia on compliance and accreditation until we stopped getting responses and then finally in Jan 2017 there was a change of staff and Liz Guzman took over and let us know:
On 11/01/2017 5:16 PM, Liz Guzman wrote:
Hi Andrew,
I refer to your below email addressed to Lujia, just letting you know that Lujia no longer works for auDA.
I will need to get up to speed on your application process to become a .au accredited registrar.
After a few attempts to receive an update, the next person at auDA took over:
From: Osley Dias
Sent: Tuesday, 14 February 2017 3:03 PM
To: andrew@trellian.com
Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: Application to become .au accredited registrar
Hi Andrew,
My name is Osley Dias and I will be assisting you.
I am reviewing the application and will update you in due course.
Osley was replaced by Di Parker shortly after who was proactive and we finally felt like we could progress with the au Accreditation. In Oct 2017 Above.com finally progressed and obtained Provisional Accreditation:
From: Di Parker
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2017 02:45:37 +0000Dear David,
Congratulations on Above.com becoming a provisionally accredited auDA registrar!
Please find attached an official letter granting provisional accreditation to Above.com and outlining the requirements that need to be undertaken to achieve full accreditation.
I have advised AusRegistry of your provisional accreditation status. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
Thanks
Di
Above.com still had a few more compliance points to complete to be qualified for a new accreditation.
Unfortunately Di Parker left and the next person Peter Mason did not last long either. So the process to complete the accreditation stalled once again.
I can honestly say that many of the delays with our application were our fault, as there were part in the policies that we did not fully cover, such as the introduction of being ISO 27001 certified. The process to complete that was costly and required many changes to our internal systems and processes.
Unfortunately the current Registrar liaison person recently advised that the Above’s application is too old and that we need to re-start the process from scratch and pay the application fee again. I can understand that but still not great to be told you have to start from scratch.
The good news from this is that we have everything in place policy wise to have the fresh accreditation application processed without any further delays. So I look forward after 7 years to have Above.com finally .au accredited.
After a bit of digging, the last registrars to be accredited by auDA was Wild West Domains in 2016 and just prior to that was UniRegistrar also in 2016.
I think Micron21 was also around that time frame as well.
Micron21 was later in 2015, so yeah around that time as well.
Are all the auda registrars ISO 27001 certified?
Being ISO is definitely a requirement to become accredited now, and I know that a few Registrars dropped their accreditation as it was just too hard and a couple were bought out and merged.
Since 2016 we have seen 13 registrars cease being accredited while no new ones were added.
Also a key point here is that in 2017 Trellian acquired a number of registrars including Drop, Fabulous, DomainShield and even that did not help fast track the new Above accreditation process.
It takes so long for the same reason .au domains were introduced, the policy seems to be protecting/benefiting a few key registrars (industry insiders).
Well I wonder what it takes to become an industry insider, as waiting nearly 7 years for a new accreditation, clearly puts us on the outer.