Those who are passionate about using technology to solve serious problems for both businesses and consumers alike will find here an environment of continual growth, expanding of boundaries, and optimism…
Arbela TakhshJuly 9, 2019
End-to-End Compliance is Closer Than You Think: How Businesses Can Get a Practical Head Start
As advances in technology give rise to new ways of approaching age-old problems, a new term has begun to surface,…
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(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…
Ascent TeamJune 25, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamJune 17, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamJune 12, 2019
(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…
Jay GilletteJune 4, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamMay 21, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamMay 8, 2019
(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…
Jay GilletteMay 6, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamMay 2, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamApril 29, 2019
(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…
Ascent TeamApril 29, 2019
(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…
Jay GilletteApril 23, 2019
(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 TeamApril 15, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamApril 12, 2019
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…
Jay GilletteApril 8, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamApril 7, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamApril 1, 2019
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,…
Ascent TeamMarch 18, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamMarch 15, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamMarch 11, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamMarch 11, 2019
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 TeamMarch 5, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamMarch 4, 2019
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…
Jay GilletteFebruary 25, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamFebruary 18, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamFebruary 11, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamJanuary 31, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamJanuary 26, 2019
Regulatory compliance programs cost financial firms billions of dollars annually. Much of this cost is a result of the exhaustive amount of time required…
Ascent TeamJanuary 20, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamJanuary 14, 2019
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…
Ascent TeamJanuary 14, 2019
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…
Jay GilletteDecember 3, 2018
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…
Ascent TeamNovember 28, 2018
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…
Ascent TeamNovember 5, 2018
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 TeamOctober 5, 2018
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…
Ascent TeamJuly 16, 2018
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…
Ascent TeamFebruary 22, 2018
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…
Ascent TeamApril 10, 2017