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Feb 25
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9 Common RegTech Questions, Answered

By Blog

As a young industry, RegTech often gives rise to a host of questions — everything from “what is it?” to “how does it work?” to “how will it affect me?” We’ve collected a handful of the more common ones and answered them below.

Have a question that’s not on our list? Drop us a line at marketing@ascentregtech.com and we will be happy to help answer it!

What does RegTech mean?

RegTech (Regulatory Technology) is the application of emerging technology to improve the way businesses manage regulatory compliance. 

RegTech companies can be established GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) platforms, startup companies, and everything in between. They are united by their use of new, groundbreaking technology in the service of solving the problems of regulatory compliance.

As an industry, RegTech has emerged over the last few years to address the rising tide of regulation and its growing complexity. To learn more about the history and future of RegTech, check out our comprehensive guide, “What is RegTech?”

READ MORE: What is RegTech?

 

What are the benefits of RegTech?

For financial services, the benefits of RegTech are substantial:

  • Efficiency gains — As regulation continues to grow, it becomes nearly impossible for compliance personnel to keep up without the aid of technology. Technology, capable of processing a high volume of data at incredible speeds, can quickly parse and analyze raw legal text and extract valuable insights. 
  • Greater accuracy and comprehensiveness — Manual, siloed processes tend to create gaps in the compliance operation, leading to human error and increased exposure. Implementing the right technology (and integrating those technologies thoughtfully where necessary) shores up gaps and creates a streamlined compliance process.
  • Greater internal alignment — Technology tools enable greater transparency throughout the business, connecting once siloed people and processes. The result is better insights between business units that can be shared faster, which also leads to a stronger culture of compliance.
  • Improved risk management — Many RegTech tools help protect against various types of risk, including market abuse, cyber attacks, and fraud, by monitoring systems and alerting personnel to suspicious activity.

READ MORE: How Ascent customers reduce risk, slash costs, and save time

 

What is end-to-end compliance and how does RegTech fit in?

End-to-end (E2E) compliance is a fully traceable process that connects external regulatory events to a business’ specific obligations, then all the way through to that business’ internal controls, policies, and procedures. In an ideal world, E2E compliance leverages automation and other technologies to create a complete functional system of compliance. To achieve E2E compliance, different RegTech solutions can be used together (often referred to as a ‘compliance technology stack’) to create a seamless process that automates rote work, connects once-disjointed processes, and supports a robust compliance framework.

With a properly implemented E2E system, businesses could 1) be alerted to relevant new rules or changes to existing rules, 2) be directed to the exact parts of their internal controls or P&Ps that are impacted so team members can make the appropriate changes, 3) manage their obligations digitally including assigning work and tracking progress against deadlines, 4) easily produce records of their compliance activities, and 5) generate useful reporting dashboards. 

Again, due to the complexity and nuance of regulatory compliance, one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, compliance leaders should take a modular approach to building a technology stack that meets the firm’s unique circumstances and objectives.

What kind of tech stack should I consider for my compliance framework?

Compliance and Risk professionals are responsible for not only determining what their firms’ regulatory framework is, but also how to maintain it once it’s set. Thankfully, there are a number of solutions within the RegTech universe that support this effort and can be combined into a comprehensive, end-to-end tech stack. The key is to know which ones to bring into your tech stack in the first place, so here are a few types of solutions to consider:.

Regulatory content tools are situated at the beginning of the compliance process. They typically take the form of a content library, feed, or resource center. Content tools consolidate documents published by regulators into one platform (including the laws, enforcement actions, guidance, rule updates, and more), making research and horizon scanning more efficient. Leaders in this space include Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, LexisNexis and Reg-Room.

Regulatory knowledge automation is technology that bridges the gap between the raw data of regulatory content and actionable insight. Market leader Ascent, for example, generates the regulatory obligations that pertain to your specific firm based on key factors like what type of financial entity you are, what services/products you offer, and where you operate. Ascent then automatically updates your obligations as rules change. This targeted regulatory knowledge allows compliance personnel to know exactly what the firm must comply with at all times, without the manual effort. 

GRC (governance, risk and compliance) platforms help operationalize compliance and often house all of a firm’s regulatory information, including obligations, controls, policies and procedures. Workflow capabilities allow users to track and manage their compliance efforts. Leaders in the space include LogicGate, MetricStream, IBM OpenPages, and RSA Archer to name a few. 

Point solutions cover a wide swath of RegTechs, helping firms execute compliance in a compliant way or assess compliance with an obligation or control. These could include (but are not limited to) trade monitoring, portfolio risk, know-your-customer, anti-money laundering, operations risk management, and cybersecurity tools. Point solutions are more limited in scope than regulatory knowledge automation or GRC solutions, but when they meet the right need they can provide substantial value.

READ MORE: The first (and most difficult) step in setting a regulatory compliance framework

 

What technologies do RegTech solutions use?

RegTech providers leverage a wide variety of emerging technologies. Here are a few of the most common:

  • Machine learning (ML) is the application of algorithms that improve automatically through experience. Rather than being specifically programmed to complete a task, ML models are fed large amounts of data, which they use to learn and improve on their own. In regulatory compliance, ML models can process large amounts of regulatory data and gradually draw conclusions about that data, becoming more and more accurate over time.
  • Natural language processing (NLP) is the field of using computers to process and analyze human language. In compliance, NLP can parse the unstructured raw text of regulation and reorganize it or otherwise transform it so that people can retrieve meaningful insights. 
  • Blockchain is a digital record of transactions, most often associated with cryptocurrencies. Blockchain has many other purposes however, such as enabling the secure sharing of know-your-customer data within or between organizations for compliance purposes.
  • Robotic process automation (RPA) allows users to configure metaphorical “robots” or “digital workers” to replicate the actions of a human in a digital environment in order to complete a business process. RPA tools can automate laborious manual processes, like the production of hundreds of disclosures that asset management firms are required to generate throughout the year.

READ MORE: RegulationAI™: World-Class Technology Built for Compliance

 

What’s the difference between RegTech, FinTech, and SupTech?

RegTech leverages emerging technology to create tools focused on solving the challenges of regulatory compliance. While the majority of existing RegTech solutions are currently focused on the world of financial regulation, RegTech could also be leveraged for other regulated industries — for example, healthcare.

FinTech, short for financial technology, is the application of technology to solve problems or create new value in financial services. Examples include crowdsourcing platforms, mobile payments, cryptocurrency, robo-advisors, budgeting apps, or the use of open banking APIs. Recently, digital banks that operate purely online with no physical locations are also being referred to as FinTechs. 

SupTech, short for supervisory technology, is the application of emerging technology to improve how regulators conduct supervision. Just as RegTech leverages technology for regulated companies, SupTech leverages technology for the regulators.

READ MORE: What is SupTech and how will it change compliance?

 

Can RegTech help me with specific regulation like GDPR?

The rise of data privacy legislation like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) have added necessary protections for consumers but have increased financial institutions’ already significant regulatory burden in the process. Depending on what you are trying to achieve with specific regulation like GDPR, RegTech offers various solutions. 

There are many point solutions that help firms execute GDPR-compliant behavior. For example, UserCentrics helps firms obtain customer data in a transparent way. Syrenis provides one central platform to manage personal data, legal basis for obtaining that data, consent, and marketing practices. GDPR365 is a compliance assessor that offers guidance on what security weaknesses need to be fixed.

To understand what your organization’s obligations are under GDPR (or any other regulation), look to regulatory knowledge tools like Ascent. Ascent’s AI-driven technology pinpoints the GDPR obligations that your firm must comply with, then updates them automatically if the rules change.

READ MORE: How a Global Top 50 Bank Secured Its GDPR Obligations Using Ascent

 

How can I use RegTech to help my firm ease compliance burdens?

There are many use cases for RegTech, but here are some of the most common:

  • Horizon Scanning — monitoring regulatory developments including rule updates, guidance, and any other communications from regulators to better understand potential threats and opportunities.
  • Identifying Obligations and Changes — conducting regulatory analysis (also referred to as regulatory mapping) to understand which obligations or requirements your business must comply with. These obligations must then be routinely updated as rules change.
  • Compliance Management — managing your daily compliance activities and aligning them with the broader framework of regulatory strategy and process.

Finding a solution for these use cases can be challenging since the RegTech space is vast and each solution facilitates a different part of the compliance process. Breaking the RegTech landscape into these four categories makes it easier: 1) Regulatory content tools, 2) Regulatory knowledge automation, 3) GRC platforms, and 4) Point solutions.

For the examples above, the solutions for each use case vary:

  • Solution for Horizon Scanning: A regulatory content provider such as Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence helps save time with horizon scanning and research.
  • Solution for Regulatory Obligations: A regulatory knowledge provider such as Ascent identifies your obligations and keeps them updated as rules change. This targeted regulatory knowledge can also be used to understand downstream impact. For example, a rule change identified by Ascent can be used to trigger alerts or workflows related to that rule in your GRC or other compliance management platform. 
  • Solution for Compliance Management: A GRC or other compliance management system such as LogicGate or IBM OpenPages allows you to house and project manage your compliance activities, including assigning tasks, tracking progress against deadlines, and managing any internal documentation such as your controls, policies and procedures. Ascent’s granular obligations can be seamlessly fed into these systems so your regulatory data and activities are monitored, tracked, and managed all in one place.

If you are looking to accomplish all of these use cases, it is likely that your compliance operation requires multiple solutions, combined to create a full-scale compliance technology stack.

What questions should I ask a RegTech vendor that leverages “AI”?


What kinds of AI technologies do you use, and why?

First, brush up on machine learning and natural language processing basics so you can follow the vendor’s response. You do not need to be an AI expert; a good vendor will be able to explain their process in a way that any business leader can understand. What’s important is that you get a clear picture of how the specific technologies and approaches used create business value for you. Is the vendor using “AI” as a flashy marketing term, or is it actually integral to the solution?

Where are you getting the data that is training your algorithms?

Good AI tools require significant amounts of quality data – as they say, ‘bad in equals bad out.’ The vendor should be able to explain how they are ingesting regulatory text (did they build an ingestion or scraping tool, or are they white-labeing another product?), from where (the best case scenario is that the vendor is pulling straight from official regulatory websites), and at what frequency (this should be reasonably frequent so you know you have the most up-to-date information at any given time). The vendor should also be able to explain the quality-assurance process that ensures all intended data points are properly captured. 

Are there humans involved in the training of your algorithms, and to what degree?

In many industries, the notion of humans-in-the-loop (meaning the technology is not 100% machine-driven; humans are still involved in some part of the process) is considered a negative sign because it means “that the tool isn’t really AI.” The compliance industry, however, is unusual in that a humans-in-the-loop process is considered a positive. Why? Because the world of regulatory compliance is so nuanced and complex, that AI solutions are far better when trained and QA-ed by human experts in regulation and law. This does not mean that all AI-driven RegTechs require humans-in-the-loop to be great tools, but the vendor should be able to explain why they do or do not involve people in the process.

Who is held liable if your solution fails?

This question is as important for you as it is for the vendor. Because this issue exists in a legal gray area, you must carefully weigh the risk of implementing any new solution (AI or not). A good AI vendor will understand why this is a concern, and should show evidence of a strong model risk management framework, rigorous internal controls, and most importantly be completely transparent about what the solution can and cannot do. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

*Ascent offers a performance guarantee for its AI solution that is backed by an insurance cover from Munich Re Group. Read the case study to learn more.

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We recommend checking out these articles to continue learning about RegTech and how it can be applied throughout the compliance process:

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May 07
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An Equal Playing Field for FinTechs & Banks: Time to Pull the Regulatory Ripcord?

By Blog

In 2018, there were 12,131 FinTech startups worldwide. In a little over two years (as of February 2021), that number has more than doubled to 26,045 startups.

Every bank executive worth her salt is at least aware of the competitive threat posed by FinTechs, even if she is struggling with the right countermoves in a world that is changing by the second.

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Banks weigh their pros and cons

In order to respond to new market entrants, many traditional banks are leaning into their natural advantages: brand recognition, deep relationships with customers and communities, economies of scale, and process knowledge that in many cases leads to greater efficiencies and savings that can be passed on to the consumer.

However, the disadvantages often loom larger. Any positive outcomes from historical process knowledge may be negated by inefficient legacy systems and simple human inertia; unwillingness to change has been the downfall of many once-behemoths in other industries. Perhaps most daunting is that banks are facing extensive, complex regulation that is changing more rapidly every passing year. 

Letting FinTechs in on the action

While it may seem natural for banks to seek to prevent FinTechs from entering the field by, for example, protesting their ability to get banking charters, allowing easier entry may be better for everyone. 

“The answer isn’t to keep FinTechs out of banking, but to let them in — provided they can satisfy the regulatory standards. To the extent there are competitive advantages of not being regulated, the answer is to regulate them.” — Michele Alt, Klaros Group

That said, regulating FinTechs doesn’t make the challenges faced by banks any easier. The rise of FinTechs naturally goes hand in hand with the proliferation of digital currencies and digital banking services, spurring a wave of new regulations that every player on the field will be subject to.

Some traditional banks are embracing this change, shown by recent announcements of bitcoin-friendliness by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and USAA to name a few. And those that aren’t may soon not have a choice — if they want to stay in business.

Automation: A common need

As the generation of digital natives matures, more and more consumers will expect (and vastly prefer) digital products and services. Today, 46% of customers exclusively use digital channels for their financial needs. 

That means everyone – banks and FinTechs alike – can expect to face increasing regulation in coming years that can only be managed by smart design and implementation of compliance technology. Many banking leaders understand the value of automation in keeping up with the massive volume and complexity of regulation and regulatory change, especially in its enabling of a more cost-effective compliance operation while actually reducing the risk of human error. Forward-thinking leaders are already well on their way to digitalizing their compliance programs, with spending on RegTech at $33 billion in 2020 and expected to grow to a whopping $130 billion in 2025.

FinTechs — usually even more cash-conscious than big banks — will also find that automation will allow them to run lean internally for longer, without compromising the quality of their compliance program or their ability to properly follow regulations. Entering the market with a modern approach to compliance already in place will set the groundwork for future growth, while keeping expenses in check.

Ascent for complying in a ‘digital everything’ world

The pioneer of Regulatory Knowledge Automation, Ascent, helps banks and FinTechs understand exactly what they need to do in order to remain compliant with changing regulations. Using world-class, AI-driven technology, Ascent analyzes millions of lines of regulatory text in order to extract individual regulatory obligations, which are then mapped to a customer’s firm specifics (e.g. which product and services the firm offers or which activities it engages in). The result is a highly targeted register of obligations that automatically updates as rules change, providing our customers with complete knowledge of how to comply at all times.

Interested in learning more? Contact us for a custom demo. 

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Mar 25
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What makes a good RegTech partner: fit and scalability

By Blog

Finding the right RegTech partner can be difficult. So we sat down with an industry expert to get his take on how he evaluates vendors.

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As an expert in regulatory change management, Vincent Schultinge has seen the evolution and impact of regulation on financial firms firsthand. So, naturally, he has also been drawn to the niche industry that emerged to try to solve these RCM challenges—RegTech. 

Now, in his current role as a senior RegTech consultant at ING, he is responsible for defining, developing and implementing RegTech innovation throughout the ING organization. During his sit-down with Ascent, Vincent shares:

  • His perspective on what makes a good RegTech partner
  • What methodology ING follows when looking to implement a RegTech partner
  • How making machine readable regulation will open doors for the future of RegTech

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Using RegTech Maturity as an Evaluation Benchmark

To Vincent, managing regulation is a task that’s too fluid and too risky to put into the hands of new-to-the-market solutions. Here’s how he considers the maturity of RegTech.

When assessing a RegTech provider, you want to make sure it fits your business’s demands. I have a firm belief that we should strive for market standard solutions. Therefore I look to see whether a RegTech has the potential to become a market standard for their solution or offering. Once we have measurable results from a Proof of Concept (PoC), then we can decide if a RegTech is suitable for our purpose or not.

The way we assess RegTechs differs from the way we look at other vendors. Due to constant regulatory oversight as a bank, we have less freedom to experiment. For many business cases we will look for parties that are more mature and that have, for example, delivered the equivalent product to our peers or are engaging in sandboxes with regulators.

 

Being Able to Audit RegTech’s Black Box

Vincent believes that “auditability” is a key factor that firms should also consider when determining whether or not to work with a RegTech provider.

Providers should always be able to explain and demonstrate how their machine learning works. For risk and compliance teams, auditability of machine learning is absolutely key. If you can’t audit a technology solution properly, especially a machine learning solution, it becomes Pandora’s box. Not to mention that regulators won’t accept anything less than full transparency.

 

Aligning Around a RegTech Provider

At ING, Vincent’s team relies on what they call “PACE” methodology when considering what RegTech solution to implement.

Whatever methodology you are using to implement RegTech, you have to be consistent, thorough, and constantly verify that you are doing the right thing. 

At ING, we use our in-house PACE methodology for the delivery of innovation. This applies to our delivery of RegTech as well. With PACE, we combine Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Agile Scrum into a single process. PACE consists of five stages being: discover, problem fit, solution fit, market fit and scaling. 

For us this works really well and we gained a lot of traction with this in the organization. On top of PACE methodology at the whole of ING we practice an agile way of working. This helps accelerate the way we set up PoCs as well as other partnerships. 

 

Unlocking the Value of RegTech

For RegTech to truly be effective, Vincent has learned that it’s important to first have a culture of innovation prior to implementing a solution.

It is essential that you have business owners with the right mandate and budget who are convinced by the usage of technology. Business and innovation teams have to be able to establish the demand and create strong use cases for the application of RegTech. Teams should collaborate in such a way that the business demand and the premise of the solutions are a true match. This will help with validating and demonstrating the benefit of using certain RegTech solutions along the way. Regardless of the size of the firm, you need the right innovative culture and the right appetite from business owners; otherwise, it just won’t work.

 

Using RegTech to Manage Pandemic Woes

According to Vincent, the pandemic has only amplified the need for RegTech.

Regulatory changes keep coming, especially considering that people are working remote and are having to align virtually due to the pandemic. Regulators demand that banks remain in control. So, firms need to be able to monitor upcoming changes in the regulatory landscape by scanning the regulatory horizon as well as assessing obligations and potential risks. This is where having proper tooling in place for horizon scanning and risk assessment will definitely help firms to maintain control in these difficult times.

 

Pioneering the Next Frontier of RegTech

What’s next for RegTech? Vincent believes that making regulation machine readable will open incredible opportunities for financial firms to unlock the true potential of RegTech.

In order for RegTech to play an even bigger role in the industry, we first need to look into a few things— machine readable regulations, data and format standardization, and global harmonization of regulations. If regulations, updates and guidelines become machine readable and ingestible globally, it will become easier for firms to demonstrate compliance and adhere to rules and guidelines more efficiently. It will open a whole range of possibilities for the adoption of RegTech within financial institutions.

The same applies to data and format standardization. If we can agree on common data and format standards, adherence to regulations becomes more efficient. With the financial system being a truly global system nowadays, it allows institutions to act across jurisdictions in a safer and more compliant manner. Together, with harmonizing regulations globally, this could translate into a much broader usage of RegTech within the financial system. This end goal is something that I believe will contribute to the overall safety and stability within the financial industry.

ING is a global bank that aims to empower people to stay a step ahead in life and in business. Visit ING’s website. 

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Dec 03
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A former regulator’s take on AI, Big Tech, and RCM

A former regulator’s take on AI, Big Tech, and RCM

By Blog

Rick Bonhof. Managing Consultant, SynechronWe recently sat down with Rick Bonhof, a managing consultant who leads the Amsterdam regulatory change and compliance practice within the business consulting arm of Synechron—a leading digital transformation consulting firm that accelerates digital initiatives for banks, asset managers, and insurance companies around the world.

In his role, Bonhof oversees a team of experts who help clients build the regulatory framework that enables compliance. As an advisor for the digital-first firm, Bonhof is hyperfocused on making compliance more efficient through the use of technology, leveraging emerging tech such as machine learning and existing systems such as GRCs.

Prior to Synechron, Bonhof served as a supervision officer for Dutch regulator Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM) at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. After spending seven years crafting and executing supervisory strategy for AFM, he decided to redirect his work from supervising firms to actually helping them become compliant with regulation. And so, after witnessing how Synechron helped a number of financial institutions get back on track with EMIR (the EU equivalent of Dodd Frank in the US), Bonhof transitioned to the firm.

During our sit-down, Bonhof shared his blended supervisory-consultative perspective on a variety of topics—from the role of regulatory change management during the COVID-19 pandemic to how Big Tech will shape the future of financial services.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

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Setting the Record Straight on Regulators

Touching on his experience as a former regulator, Bonhof kicked off our conversation by sharing what he wished compliance professionals knew about regulators, and what he wished he had known as a regulator. 

When I made the switch from regulator to consultant, I realized that a lot of financial firms are afraid of regulators. But the reality is that regulators are people too and most are not out to fine you. What I think compliance professionals sometimes forget is that if you’re able to explain to regulators why you made certain decisions and how you implemented certain requirements, they’ll listen to you.

“A lot of financial firms are afraid of regulators. But the reality is that regulators are people too and most are not out to fine you.”

My advice to compliance professionals is to document their interpretation of the rule and why they applied the rule in a certain way according to their interpretation, so they have all of the information they need when it comes time to talk to regulators.

On the flip side, what I wish I had known as a regulator was, no matter how simple a request for information may seem on paper, it doesn’t actually mean that there’s a clearcut way to gather requested information or to implement a new rule. Many financial institutions do not start out as multinational global-spending institutions—they grow through mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring.

So there’s a whole collection of teams that suddenly need to contribute to this “one simple request,” making it not so simple after all.

Managing Regulatory Change in the Time of COVID 

Bonhof has long emphasized the importance of having a well-documented regulatory change management (RCM) strategy, especially when it comes to major events such as financial crises, election years and of course — the COVID-19 pandemic.

When it comes to regulatory change management, my mantra has been “take control, be in control, and demonstrate control.” 

“Take control” is about understanding what your obligations are, understanding the impact of them, and then implementing and enforcing a compliant process.

“Be in control” is about understanding where your firm is in terms of compliance with the requirements, and revisiting both its requirements and compliance processes frequently. You should not only be control testing your processes to understand whether your firm is compliant with existing rules, but also monitoring whether there’s a change coming that could impact compliance with those rules. And, if there is a change on the horizon, then you need to go back to “take control” and proactively act on it.

Lastly, “demonstrate control” is about being able to take the evidence that you have and explain both internally and externally to what extent you comply with those measures.

How to Avoid Dropping the Ball on RCM

In Bonhof’s view, the biggest mistake that firms can make when implementing RCM best practices, is to treat them as a one-time solution. 

Most regulatory change management processes are driven by a regulatory change implementation date. Let’s say that a firm has to comply with X, Y, and Z by January 1, 2021. What I’ve found (and even been guilty of myself) is that many firms focus solely on making that milestone without the end result in mind. So once the firm does reach it, everyone sort of drops the ball and says, “We’re done, we made it.” But that’s the wrong approach because 2021 does not mark the end of implementing that change, it actually marks the start of it. 

What I’ve found (and even been guilty of myself) is that many firms focus solely on making [a] milestone without the end result in mind.

Firms are expected to be compliant with that new rule, and need to have a roadmap that accounts for what comes after that date. Firms often put makeshift technical solutions in place to meet the deadline, but then what happens is the technical solution silently becomes the structural solution. The result is that there’s no roadmap beyond that point to account for new data that needs to be tracked or changed, resulting in an issue of data quality and therefore explainability. 

COVID Response: Swings of the Regulatory Pendulum

To Bonhof, regulatory change management has never been more important as the pandemic response continues to fold. While he and his team have seen the easing of certain regulatory requirements, they have also seen the mounting impact of others.

On the one hand, the regulatory response to the pandemic has been to suspend certain requirements in order to alleviate the burden of regulation. However, at the same time, we’ve also seen an increase in requests for financial firms to implement certain risk measures from regulators such as the European Securities and Markets Authority. 

For example, we had an “intelligent lockdown” in the Netherlands that prohibited us from going to the shops or the cinema. As a result, this (like other lockdowns across the globe) had a large impact on service providers, as many businesses had outstanding loans with financial institutions and were suddenly not able to make good on those loans. This has led to a tipping of scales with regulators adding more capital reporting requirements, while continuing to suspend or delay implementation of other regulatory requirements. For example, ESMA deferred the final two phases of its bilateral margin requirements to provide additional operational capacity for counterparties to respond to the immediate impact of COVID-19. 

On the Importance of Innovation in IRM

While regulators have been more forgiving during the pandemic, they have also become increasingly more aware of all of the possible gap—bringing the topic of Integrated Risk Management (IRM) to the fore. Here’s Bonhof’s take on IRM.

Integrated Risk Management allows you to identify what risks exist within your firm, define a response to those risks, and then determine whether your firm is within that risk appetite. Ultimately, IRM combines all of those processes and rolls them up into a multi-level process chart where you can prioritize risks and pinpoint which ones are of the highest risk to your firm. 

IRM is such a hot concept right now because regulators are putting more emphasis on it.

As part of Synechron’s FinLabs RegTech accelerator suite, I’ve actually had the opportunity to work on automating parts of IRM. Knowing how effective your controls are is a key part of integrated risk management, so we built an intelligent control testing environment that maps a firm’s individual control statements into a decision tree that automatically runs against a data set to help firms quickly pinpoint whether a control is effective or not. This advancement frees up compliance teams’ valuable resources so they can focus on remediating any deficiencies.

These types of innovation are becoming more important as Integrated Risk Management continues to gain more traction. IRM is such a hot concept right now because regulators are putting more emphasis on it. For example, ESMA recently published a consultation paper that assessed the suitability of the management at financial institutions, which concluded that the highest levels of management (including at the board level) need to understand their firms’ requirements, how they are complying with them, and what the state of the firm’s risk management looks like.  

Clash of the Titans: Big Banking vs. Big Tech

As an innovator in his own right, Bonhof is naturally drawn to industry disruptors. In particular, he has been following the rise of digital banks and believes that it’s only a matter of time until Big Tech enters into the banking industry as well.

The rise in digital banks has served as a catalyst for digital transformation in the industry at large. In order to stay competitive with digital banks, traditional banks have worked to provide digital services to their customers. For customers, having a digital bank account becomes more of a commodity because it opens up a whole ecosystem of additional services around it. 

For digital banks, their competitive advantage is that they’re not burdened by a chain linked system of legacy tools or processes, so they can get it right immediately. Digital banks can be more nimble when it comes to things like digital client onboarding processes and company reporting. On the other hand, it’s difficult for digital banks to achieve the same scale as larger banks. Plus, they’re bound to face the same kind of regulatory requirements as incumbent banks and will need to comply with them, lessening some of their initial competitive edge.

When Big Tech enters the market, it will drive a significant change that some incumbent banks will likely not be able to transition through and will lose traction within the market. 

What I’m really curious about is when Big Tech will officially enter into the banking space. Today, we have Apple Pay and Google Pay, but I think that it’s just a matter of time before they’re adding banking services to their offering. At that point the market will change. Digital banks just mark the beginning of the banking industry’s digital transformation. When Big Tech enters the market, it will drive a significant change that some incumbent banks will likely not be able to transition through and will lose traction within the market. 

Financial Firms and Regulators to Step Up Their AI Game

With the high likelihood of Big Tech companies entering the market in addition to other innovations in financial services, Bonhof is encouraging the industry to direct its focus toward emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) now, before it’s too late.

I think regulators really need to step up their digital game. They need to understand the tech component that goes into digital banking. AFM just compiled an insightful trend report where they spoke around their fears about Big Tech entering into the financial market. Today, Big Tech is predominantly supervised by privacy watchdogs. But, if Big Tech entered the financial market tomorrow, financial market regulators would not always be allowed to share information with those supervisory agencies, so that would make supervision really difficult. 

Regulators are just now issuing responses around the use of AI, which center around the concepts of explainability and trustworthiness. Together, they are two sides of the same coin because they help explain the decisions that come out of algorithms and apply fair principles that limit their biases. However, I still think that we have a ways to go and that regulation around the use of AI will only continue to increase in the future as the digital market matures.

The Role of AI in Regulatory Compliance

According to Bonhof, the role of AI is not just limited to the mechanics of digital banking. It applies to regulatory compliance too.

We recognize that regulators are starting to provide guidelines around AI, so we are changing the way that we advise our clients about AI. AI was once the new and exciting thing to talk about. Now it’s the means to an end. We’re looking at where AI models can help firms improve explainability in their compliance processes. 

AI was once the new and exciting thing to talk about. Now it’s the means to an end.

Using robotics (or AI) helps automate certain regulatory compliance processes such as horizon scanning, and makes the outcomes of those processes more predictable and reliable. AI allows teams to focus less time doing the monotonous work of running these processes and more time on investigating outliers. Instead, the “robot” leads the processes and identifies areas where there are inconsistencies that require the review of compliance experts.

On Implementing RegTech: Final Advice

So, what’s Bonhof’s advice to firms that are looking to implement new technologies in their compliance programs? “Be really clear about what you want to achieve in your compliance program and therefore what you want the technology to achieve.”

First, you need to understand where you are and where you want to go. For instance, if your firm was just fined by a regulator, then you’ll likely need to find a solution that can help you become more compliant. On the other hand, if your organization is in a good place but needs to become more efficient, then it’s likely you’ll need a different tech stack than the firm that was recently fined. When you understand what you want to achieve by adding technology, then you can better pinpoint the right type of technology solution for your compliance program.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Synechron, visit their website. To learn more about Rick Bonhof, connect with him on LinkedIn. 

If you’d like to contact an Ascent team member, you can do so here. Stay tuned for our next interview from the lines of defense. All interviews will be featured in our monthly Cliff Notes newsletter, which you can subscribe to below.

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Jul 02
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How Ascent Helps Financial Firms Slash Compliance Costs

By Blog

Ascent helps financial services firms follow the laws, rules, and regulations more easily, both reducing overall compliance costs and helping you avoid monetary, reputational, and punitive penalties.

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Lower compliance costs, fewer fines

The leaps and bounds that AI technologies have made in recent years make it possible to automate compliance processes such as regulatory mapping and regulatory change management — which have historically been highly manual, time-intensive, and prone to human error.

A pioneer in regulatory knowledge automation, Ascent rapidly and accurately identifies every obligation that applies to your specific firm. Then, as regulators publish new rule amendments or additions, your obligations are automatically updated to reflect these changes.

Ascent’s technology helps firms save money on compliance in two key ways:

— Reduces the cost to comply. By automatically generating a firm’s regulatory obligations and keeping them updated, Ascent helps in-house Compliance teams and regulatory advisors save significant time and resources. As importantly, Ascent empowers existing staff to take on more value-add activities such as proactively preparing for regulatory change and developing regulatory strategy, thereby strengthening the business overall and shifting compliance from a cost-center to a competitive advantage.

— Prevents compliance failures and associated fines and penalties. In a world where a new regulatory update is issued every seven minutes, financial institutions can no longer afford to miss a rule change. By automatically delivering the obligations and rule changes that apply specifically to a business, Ascent helps shore up the compliance program, minimize risk, and avoid fines.

A Global Top 50 Bank achieved 99% cost savings with Ascent.  Read their Story.

 

Contact us to request a demo or learn more about Ascent.

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Jul 01
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RegulationAI™: World-Class Technology Built for Compliance

By Blog

When it comes to automating any aspect of compliance, how the technology itself is built has serious implications for your business. Here we explain the building blocks of Ascent’s RegulationAI™, what makes it unique in the industry, and how our approach ensures that you truly have what you need to eliminate regulatory gaps, avoid fines and ultimately be more competitive.

Not all automation is created equal

Ascent invented a new kind of technology called Regulatory Knowledge Automation in order to tackle one of the most intractable challenges in compliance: mining mountains of regulatory information to get to the insights that matter — in other words, the actual actions our customers need to take (or refrain from taking) in order to stay compliant with the law.

How the technology works is just as crucial as the output of that technology. As all those who work in compliance know, it is not only the destination that matters, but how you got there. 

Thanks to rapid advances in technology in recent years, compliance personnel now have a range of digital tools to help streamline this process. However, not all tools are created equal – especially when it is your firm’s reputation and financial wellbeing on the line. Other solutions may be partially automated, but depending on how they are built may actually create more work for the end user and increased risk for the business.

So while automation can seem helpful on the surface, it is crucial to understand the basis for the algorithms and the differences between solutions so you can make the right choice for your business. 

Ascent’s RegulationAI™ breaks down regulatory text line-by-line in order to pinpoint the obligations relevant to you. Conversely, other solutions rely on algorithms that act much like a search engine. Their software skims through regulatory documents in search of key phrases or specified search terms that might be related to a company’s business requirements. The result is guesswork, but scaled up – thousands of potential obligations that may or may not be relevant to you, which your team must still manually review. Manual reconciliation is required with every change in regulation, adding liability instead of reducing it.

When it comes to using automation to analyze regulatory text — a job that once could only be done by humans — how the technology works is just as crucial as the output of that technology. As all those who work in compliance know, it is not only the destination that matters, but how you got there. 

Granularity: a crucial new concept in regulatory technology

Click here to read more about how Ascent delivers granular obligations.

The magic is in our method

To understand why Ascent’s RegulationAI™ outperforms other solutions, it is important to first understand how it works. 

Ascent’s team of engineers, data scientists, and compliance officers have spent years building, training, and optimizing the algorithms that power our platform, which are built using machine learning and natural language processing technologies. Only about 35 percent of any body of regulatory text contains an actual obligation (the rest consists of definitions, clarifications, and other ancillary information) and an even smaller percentage of those obligations apply to any particular business. Our algorithms are trained to spot the difference, and immediately get to work parsing out the text into obligations and non-obligations. 

The output of this process is then verified by our in-house compliance experts as part of our humans-in-the-loop process. Their insights then get fed back into the system, making the algorithms that much smarter and more accurate as time goes on.

The output of this process is then verified by our in-house compliance experts as part of our humans-in-the-loop process. Their insights then get fed back into the system, making the algorithms that much smarter and more accurate as time goes on.

Targeting obligations to you

Once the regulatory text has been decomposed and quality-assured, our RegulationAI™ has nearly everything it needs to do its magic. The last step is input from you, our customer. 

In order for our RegulationAI™ to deliver the obligations that apply specifically to you, it needs to know some key information about your business; for example, what types of products or services you offer and in which regions you operate. This step takes the form of an online questionnaire. Once this questionnaire is complete, our RegulationAI™ rapidly maps regulation to your business profile, providing you with a clean, complete, and streamlined register of obligations in minutes. 

The true value of granular obligations

Because of how our RegulationAI™ breaks down regulatory text, we are able to offer obligations at a granular level. This means that every obligation delivered to you is the individual requirement imposed on your business, not an entire rule or large block of regulatory text that you must further analyze. Furthermore, every obligation automatically updates as rules change and is linked to the specific rule it came from, so you have full traceability into how your obligations were derived.

How Ascent’s RegulationAI™ works is the key difference that sets our technology apart. It is the reason we can provide obligations that are precise, down to the line level of regulation. It is the reason we can map obligations to your specific business with unmatched accuracy. It is the reason why we can analyze the regulatory landscape and identify the rule changes that are relevant to you, and then connect them to your existing obligations so you are never dealing with outdated information.

Do great business while minimizing risk

With the power of RegulationAI™ at its core, Ascent provides regulatory knowledge that is tailored to your company so you can effectively reduce risk and avoid regulatory infractions that could set your business back. Unlike legacy technology implementations or traditional service engagements that might take many months and thousands of dollars, Ascent has $0 implementation fees and can be set up in days. 

Great technology enables and enhances your team. With Ascent, you can shift your focus to developing a proactive, scaleable compliance strategy that makes your business more competitive  — without the constant worry of accidentally missing an important update or keeping records that will stand up to regulator scrutiny. 

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to receive fresh ideas on how to leverage automation for stronger, more efficient, and more cost-effective compliance. 

 

May 21
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Webinar | The Way Through: Shifting from Reaction to Recovery through Technology

By Blog

Watch The Webinar

About the Webinar

Watch our recent webinar, produced in partnership with Capco, to hear Peter Dugas, executive director at Capco, and Brian Clark, founder and CEO at Ascent, discuss how advances in regulatory technology can enable firms to shift out of a reactionary stance and into recovery mode.

You’ll take away tips and insights on:

  • How to better monitor regulatory change
  • How to build your rule inventory digitally
  • How to use AI to identify the obligations relevant to your business

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May 18
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[Infographic] Regulatory Knowledge Automation, Explained

By Blog

Infographic that explains Regulatory Knowledge Automation

 

WANT TO LEARN MORE?:  Download our Regulatory Knowledge Automation guide

 

Modern challenges require modern tools. Interested in seeing how Ascent can help you identify your obligations and automatically keep them updated as rules change?

Contact us to see the Ascent platform and learn how our Regulatory Knowledge Automation can help lower your regulatory risks & costs.

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