“The entire industry takes its cues from the regulators. Therefore, we know with certainty that digitalization is not a trend, but a permanent paradigm shift that every firm will need…
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The Rise of Regulatory Sandboxes and What They Signal for Financial Firms
"The entire industry takes its cues from the regulators. Therefore, we know with certainty that digitalization is not a trend,…
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Ascent announced today that its platform now includes the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). EMIR affects businesses in the EU and is directed at over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets, central counterparties…
Public confusion about the different roles that Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisors play prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue an Interpretive Release outlining The Standard of Conduct for…
Wealth management, like every sector of the financial industry, has come in for its share of regulatory attention in recent years. Whereas the challenge of leveraging “big data” to find…
As advances in technology give rise to new ways of approaching age-old problems, a new term has begun to surface, one that will no doubt dominate the global dialogue around…
(6 min read) Deciding whether or not to adopt a new platform can be stressful. Too often, businesses make the transition but are unable to successfully implement the tool to…
(2 min read) In 2018, the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR) amended the treasury laws in Australia to make senior executives of authorized deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) accountable for bank activities. It…
(5 min read) The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) published its 2019 Examination Priorities in late 2018. Threats from cybersecurity continue to alarm and frustrate businesses…
(5 min read) When it comes to risk, most of us would rather be fire marshals than firefighters; that is, battling a raging inferno is far less preferable to…
(4 min read) When you were very young, your first words may have been “mama” or “dada.” In school, you grew your vocabulary and learned how words relate to each…
Regulatory change management continues to be a top challenge for financial institutions. Rule changes have increased by 500 percent in the last decade and it is estimated that 300 million…
(7 min read) As a leader of a critical business function, you’re always curious to find out how your peer firms are faring in the current environment. That’s not just…
(8 min read) “The relationship between human intelligence and artificial intelligence will necessarily be one of symbiosis. The challenge and potential of exploring this co-evolutionary future is the biggest story…
(2 min read) Ascent was one of eight firms selected by the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) to move forward in the testing plan phase of a cross-border pilot. GFIN is a…
(8 min read) It doesn’t matter if you hear it from a doctor, a teacher, or a financial regulator, the word “exam” is rarely something to look forward to. Whatever…
(2 min read) Ascent RegTech announced today that its cloud-based platform now supports the regulators required by federally-regulated banks and other financial firms, bundled for simpler purchasing and implementation. Ascent’s…
(11 min read) Business leaders – especially corporate CCOs – face a shifting and unpredictable morass of statutory and regulatory guidelines that threaten personal liability for corporate misdeeds. Corporate misdeeds…
Ascent RegTech announced today the expansion of its executive team with the hiring of Arbela Takhsh as Chief Operating Officer. During her over 20 years of experience leading business operations…
For compliance executives, steering clear of inadvertent involvement in money laundering should be a top priority. The challenge, of course, is that money laundering typically happens in the financial shadows...
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At Ascent, we use AI technologies to de-complicate financial regulation, making it easier for Risk and Compliance teams everywhere to keep their firms above board. We use two primary forms…
At Ascent, our team stays on top of the latest developments in regulatory compliance by attending and participating in important industry conferences throughout the year, where we both exhibit and…
In 2017, 32 year-old Alex Honnold made history as the first and only person to free solo Yosemite’s El Capitan. His ascent up the 3,000 foot granite monolith without rope,…
We are excited to announce the release of seven new regulators into the Ascent platform: FFIEC (Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council) FRB (Federal Reserve Board), OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets…
Contributors: Brian Clark and Paul Butler Managing regulatory risk may be business as usual, but the stakes continue to rise. Few things ramp up pressure on compliance officers more than industry…
The cost to comply is rising. A 2018 study by CEI estimates that firms spend approximately $10,000 per employee on compliance. That means that larger institutions (i.e. global banks, large…
Understandably, CCOs worry about being held personally responsible for compliance failures. That is, in fact, exactly what legislators and regulators intended by creating rules subjecting CCOs to personal liability for…
Ascent RegTech announced today the launch of an enhanced product offering that automatically delivers regulatory updates targeted to the customer and, even more critically, that shows the customer how that update…
There’s a recurrent nightmare shared by many compliance officers. It involves as little as a single rogue trader secretly conspiring with peers at other firms over an encrypted channel like...
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The role of the compliance officer is rapidly evolving — are you? We teamed up with financial services consulting firm Catalyst to explore this topic. Commercial partner Blythe Barber, having worked…
The rise of AI is to knowledge work what assembly lines were to manufacturing work. The usage of this technology across industries is radically reshaping how work is accomplished, turning…
The 24th Annual ADM Investor Services Conference in Chicago earlier this month hosted a top-tier group of introducing brokers and FCMs. Our team at Ascent walked away with three key…
Major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether represent a class of financial instrument that is here to stay. But, for the time being these digital mediums of exchange also have a…
Regulatory compliance programs cost financial firms billions of dollars annually. Much of this cost is a result of the exhaustive amount of time required…
Regulatory Technology (RegTech) — often slated as the growing sister of FinTech — is the application of technology to improve the way we manage regulatory compliance. The kinds of GRC…
When we think about AI penetrating the workforce in a significant way, there seem to be two primary pain points. First, people fear that AI will replace them; second, the…
GDPR, the EU’s personal data protection and privacy regulatory ruleset for companies around the world became active in May of 2018. A Forrester report showed that just four months before…
Friction between your compliance departments and the rest of your business often stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the overall function of compliance. While the business as a whole may…
What exactly is Intelligence-as-a-Service (“INTaaS”), and how can it help solve some of the world’s toughest challenges in regulatory compliance? As machine analytics improve and artificial intelligence begins to automate…
We set out to gather research from our customers to improve the Ascent experience. From the invaluable feedback we received, some clear patterns emerged revolving around the following questions: Tasks…
When we discuss compliance costs, we are really making the distinction between two types of costs: 1. The cost of compliance, which is the amount that firms spend to manage…
Ascent RegTech announced the hiring of two new executives as the company continues to grow and expand its offerings. Subha Sriram will serve as Vice President of Product, and Jeff…
ING and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) have successfully completed a RegTech pilot to simplify processing of information and implementation of regulation using the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID…
We’ve been busy at Ascent HQ! From fashioning a new dashboard to creating a more robust reporting feature and everything in between, we’ve revamped the Ascent Navigator to give you…