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Dec 02
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What the Tech? Machine Learning Explained

By Blog

Imagine an alien species flew down through our atmosphere and landed on your front porch. They explain that they have a perfect understanding of our language but absolutely no knowledge of our world, and ask you to answer one burning question: “What is a fish?”

How would you respond? A fish is something that swims in the water, you might say. The aliens run out, grab a small child from the nearest swimming pool, and present him to you. Is this a fish? they ask. You clarify: A fish is something that swims in the water and has fins. The child is returned and a seal is brought instead. Is this a fish? A fish is something that swims in water, has fins, and has gills. A toy shark appears on your doorstep. 

This method of instruction — providing a definition that grows longer and more precise to accommodate an issue’s complexity — can be understood as the traditional way of programming a machine. You write a complex formula that tries to take into consideration all known factors in order to help a machine answer a question or perform a task. It is the equivalent of giving a man a fish and feeding him for one day. Machine learning is teaching a man to fish instead.

Rather than relying on a definition, machine learning uses big, diverse sets of data, which are then used to train an algorithm. When you try to use a definition, no matter how long and complex that definition is, it will likely still have gaps and inaccuracies. But by gathering a very large and diverse set of examples, you can create a much more complete understanding. 

Following the logic of machine learning, instead of trying to define for the aliens what a fish is, you would take them to the nearest aquarium. Look, you would say pointing at one of the tanks, that is a fish. And that too. And that. 

Why machine learning is so powerful

Technology has advanced to the point that algorithms are now able to develop their own rules when determining whether something does or does not meet certain criteria, based on the data sets they are given. When loading a data set into a program, the programmer doesn’t have to say this is a fish and here’s why — she simply has to provide the examples. 

Things like neural networks — layered sets of algorithms designed to recognize patterns — then adjust their weightings and inputs as they “learn” what a fish looks like. The more data fed into the system, the more refined its “definition” becomes. Once the system is trained, it can be given any image and can then determine whether or not it meets the specified criteria.

There are obviously many applications of these technologies (beyond identifying fish) — facial recognition, self-driving cars, weather forecasting. And RegTech companies are now bringing these capabilities to the world of compliance. 

At Ascent, we are using machine learning in combination with other technologies to de-complicate financial regulation, making it easier for Risk and Compliance workers to know exactly which obligations and rule updates are relevant to their business.

Ascent ingests millions of lines of regulatory text and feeds them into our machine learning models, parsing and analyzing the data far faster and with greater accuracy than people could alone. 

The result is a register of obligations that are targeted to you and always updated as rules change.

READ ARTICLE: How Ascent Simplifies Regulatory Change Management with Automation

 

The power of automation for compliance

Great technology augments your team. With Ascent, Risk and Compliance teams can focus on the high-value activities that matter most, without the constant worry of accidentally missing an important update or keeping records that will stand up to regulator scrutiny.

 

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Ascent helps financial services firms identify their regulatory obligations and keep them updated as rules change. Our targeted regulatory intelligence helps you avoid fines and reduce risk, while lowering your overall cost to comply. Learn more.

Sep 05
Love1

The Rise of Regulatory Sandboxes and What They Signal for Financial Firms

By Blog, Featured

“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 to embrace, or be left behind.” 

The word “sandbox” has over the years experienced an intriguing evolution. The tech world saw the word morph into a term meaning a closed environment for testing digital or web-based projects; now in the same digital universe, the word also refers to a “regulatory sandbox” — an environment for testing new business models insulated from current regulations. 

The first regulatory sandbox was formed in the U.K. in 2014: Project Innovate, which would serve as a model for subsequent sandboxes. In the U.S., Arizona became the first state to sanction a regulatory sandbox, and Illinois is currently considering enacting one. 

Experts have generally viewed regulation and innovation as inherent adversaries. A sandbox can be seen, though, as a sort of compromise where innovative ideas are tested in the absence of outright regulation while still preserving consumer protections. A sandbox helps companies with unique business ideas avoid the trappings of traditional compliance while still adhering to any regulations already in place.

READ ARTICLE: Building Regulation AI: Solving Compliance in the Age of AI

 

The Origin of GFIN

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the U.K. had advanced the idea in 2018, along with eleven other regulatory groups, of a global sandbox, a fintech term for an environment designed for testing technological ideas on a global level. The concept became a reality, resulting in the creation of a conglomerate of 38 organizations called the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN). The initiative listed its three purposes as follows:

— To give companies an environment conducive to testing international solutions.

— To unite regulators so they could discuss new business models and technologies, as well as provide companies with regulatory information.

 — To provide a venue for policy discussions.

Responses to the initial idea of a global sandbox included a concern that the project be just in its dealings with those who want to test across international borders, along with other issues like blockchain technology, data protection, artificial intelligence, regulation of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and securities.

Responses also included enthusiasm over how quickly news of such technological innovations encryption technology would reach the global marketplace, interest in cooperation among regulators on common issues that companies must face across different jurisdictions, with a focus on the challenges bilateral relationships between companies and regulators face, and interest in providing businesses and regulators an environment where they could discuss policy issues.

“Many regulators around the world are themselves embracing technology, as seen by the global rise of regulatory ‘sandboxes’ and other initiatives like ASIC’s Innovation Hub in Australia,” said Dean Patzer, Ascent’s Director of Solutions Engineering, who previously served as Senior Compliance Officer and then as Capital Markets Vice President at BMO.  “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 to embrace, or be left behind.”

The FCA announced in April the proposed creation of a cross-border pilot program to test new technologies under GFIN. Ascent, an AI-driven platform that provides insight to customers on regulatory responsibilities, was one of eight solution providers selected for consideration in the trial program. A pioneer in RegulationAI, Ascent works with regulators the world over, including the U.S., the United Kingdom, Asia and Australia. 

READ ARTICLE: Ascent Selected by GFIN for Regulatory Cross-Border Pilot

 

Modern challenges require modern tools. Interested in seeing how Ascent can help you automate horizon scanning, change management, and obligations management? 

Request a Demo


Aug 26
Love1

European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) Now Available on Ascent

By Blog

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 (parties which interpose themselves as a focal point between trade deals), and trade repositories (where records of trades are collected and maintained). EMIR establishes common rules for central counterparties and trade repositories, requiring qualified entities to report all derivatives contracts entered into a trade repository. Implemented by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), EMIR is intended to reduce systemic counterparty and operational risk, and help prevent future financial system collapses.  

In 2015, the European Commission (EC) conducted an assessment of EMIR, which found that the regulation imposed overly complex and disproportionate burdens to non-financial counterparties, small financial counterparties and pension funds. Amendments to the regulation made in an effort to address these issues – known as EMIR Refit – were published in May 2019 and applied 20 days following publication i.e. 17 June 2019. EMIR Refit expanded the sphere of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) formerly considered as financial counterparties (FC) by EMIR. Equally, the change is significant in application due to the linkage between several obligations listed under EMIR and the subsequent classification of an entity more so as an FC. 

Ascent’s AI-driven solutions make it easier for financial firms to assess regulatory changes and their impact to the business. Using artificial intelligence, Ascent automatically curates the regulatory obligations and rule changes that apply to each specific customer, which are then linked to the customer’s daily compliance tasks, controls, and policies and procedures. This targeted regulatory knowledge enables businesses to more efficiently and accurately assess and mitigate risk. 

Modern challenges require modern tools. Interested in seeing how Ascent can help you stay ahead of changing regulation? Request a demo below.

Request a Demo


Jul 29
Love1

Staying Ahead of Reg BI: The SEC Clarifies Standards of Conduct for Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisors  

By Blog

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 Investment Advisors. 

Released on June 5, 2019, its main objectives were to enhance customer (i.e. investor) decision-making and protection in large part by helping customers better understand the roles (and differences between) Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisors. In general, customers could be harmed if they are confused by how Broker-Dealers and Investment Advisors may have conflicting financial interests of their own. 

According to the Proposed Rule: Regulation Best Interest or Reg BI, a Broker-Dealer making a recommendation of a specific securities transaction or investment strategy must always act in the best interest of the customer (what satisfies “best interest” is outlined in the rule).

Meanwhile, Investment Advisors owe a fiduciary duty to their clients which – while similar to best interest — includes a duty of care and loyalty. This is reflective of the nature of the relationship between Investment Advisors and their clients which tends to require a higher level of trust over a longer period of time. 

Stay Ahead of Reg BI Compliance with Ascent

The key to staying current on Reg BI or any other SEC-issued rules is a compliance program that evolves with new regulations. 

Ascent provides you with a feed of regulatory changes (including those related to Reg BI) that apply to your firm, helps you visualize how the rule text has changed, and indicates whether that change impacts your existing controls, policies and procedures. 

Ascent also serves as a central repository for all regulator documents so you can easily search for speeches, guidelines or other releases concerning Reg BI, allowing for comprehensive research.

READ ARTICLE: How Ascent Simplifies Regulatory Change Management with Automation

 

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Jul 23
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Unleashing Wealth Managers with the Power of RegTech

By Blog

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 hidden insights dominated conversations among wealth management professionals ten years ago, industry discussions today center around complying with KYC (“know your customer”) rules and defending the suitability of investment recommendations.

As regulatory requirements have broadened and deepened across asset classes and jurisdictions, they have inflicted an increasingly heavy tax on wealth managers to ensure compliance and to keep their clients (and themselves) out of trouble.

In many ways, the growth of the regulatory burden constitutes the hidden underbelly of the FinTech boom. Distilling opportunity from an ocean of data is one thing. Exploiting that opportunity while staying on the right side of regulations can be quite another.

New RegTech ventures have stepped into the breach to support wealth managers in meeting regulatory compliance obligations. Here are a few of the ways they’re changing the wealth management landscape.

Untangling Complex Regulations to Unleash Business Potential

Regulatory text constitutes a dense, confusing stew of proscriptions and obligations written in a language foreign to most readers. Digesting and making sense of a single requirement applicable to a single asset class in a single jurisdiction takes time, patience, and a patience for complexity.

There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for individual wealth managers to absorb and implement regulation on their own, try as they might. And so, ingrained and intractable regulatory complexity inflicts a dual risk: for any given trade, an asset manager risks non-compliance with the regulations he or she knows about, and also risks not knowing about all of the regulations that may apply. 

Enter AI-driven compliance management solutions like Ascent.

Ascent is leading the way in the development of a new class of technology that teaches machines to parse and analyze regulatory text. What takes humans hours to (barely) absorb takes an AI-driven algorithm mere minutes to dissect and analyze.

These solutions hold the promise of revolutionizing wealth management by substantially reducing the risk of non-compliance and ignorance of regulatory applicability. In time, they will be able to tell wealth managers, in advance of a trade and in plain language, exactly which regulations apply to an investment strategy and exactly how to execute it in compliance with the law.

In so doing, RegTech solutions will enable FinTech/big data to achieve its full potential, freeing managers to pursue investment strategies without the fear of non-compliance. 

READ ARTICLE: How Ascent Simplifies Regulatory Change Management with Automation

 

Facilitating Compliance Management

RegTech also has its sights set on facilitating core compliance management tasks. For example, there are already solutions on the market (and more in the pipeline) to automate anti-money laundering efforts, such as conducting multi-jurisdictional screening of customers and identifying the beneficial ownership of investment vehicles (even those formed offshore). By building data networks that increase investor transparency, RegTechs promise to take the guesswork and relative risk out of doing business with a new customer in a new jurisdiction.

Likewise, RegTech solutions can help marry two related and increasingly-important regulatory functions: KYC data collection and suitability analysis. Not only can they facilitate and automate the collection of critical KYC information directly from new customers and from third-party data networks, compliance management solutions can also parse that information and derive insight about whether an investment strategy fits an investor’s profile and long-term objectives. 

Finally, RegTech continues to develop new and better ways to streamline compliance reporting. Existing and emerging solutions generate reports automatically, making filing much more efficient. Increasingly, RegTech delivers value for wealth managers by developing tools that recognize and flag issues (trading patterns, capital flows, etc.) that will likely attract regulatory scrutiny, giving firms the opportunity to tackle a thorny problem before an inspector from the SEC or FCA comes calling.

READ ARTICLE: Exam Time? Tips from a Former Regulator on How to Prepare

 

Speeding Up and Adding Precision To Rule-Making

The same compliance automation solutions that help asset managers understand and comply with regulations will also soon be put to use crafting and testing new regulations. New technology will help eliminate the vexing problem of inconsistent or contradictory provisions by giving regulators and other stakeholders the ability to see an entire body of regulations from “30,000 feet” and to model how changing regulatory text here will have an impact on obligations over there. They will also create a more streamlined process of collaborative rule-making, linking all stakeholders together and giving them the tools to track and analyze proposed amendments in real-time.

In facilitating insight, efficiency, and collaboration in rule-making, RegTech solutions also hold the promise to do something greater: they will help develop regulators develop rules that actually address market conditions as they exist at the time of a final rule issuance, instead of the conditions that existed when the lengthy rule-making process began (but have since evolved). This will in turn allow for less costly, more precise rules, eliminating market inefficiencies that result from overbroad rules that throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater by inhibiting legitimate investment much more than they prevent illegitimate practices. 

READ ARTICLE: Ascent Selected by GFIN for Regulatory Cross-Border Pilot

 

Ascent Leads the Way

At Ascent, we strive to develop regulatory change management and compliance management solutions that free wealth managers and other financial industry professionals from the time-consuming, expensive task of regulatory compliance, so that they can do what they do best: build relationships, develop business, and implement the wisdoms gleaned from their technology backend.

LEARN MORE: Click here to learn about Ascent Solutions.

 

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Jul 16
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End-to-End Compliance is Closer Than You Think: How Businesses Can Get a Practical Head Start

By Blog

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 compliance in very short time: End-to-End Compliance.

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Up until very recently, the only possible compliance process was by its nature a fragmented one. Typically, it’s myriad steps, activities, and tasks are handled across disparate systems and are further complicated by the fact that compliance work travels through several departments and lines of business.

There have been a few attempts at partial automation to help unify these efforts, including widespread use of Excel spreadsheets, GRCs, and various point solutions. Even with these tools in place, however, businesses have fallen prey to the gaps inherent in such a disjointed environment, negatively impacting their ability to keep up with regulatory events, implement policy internally, and provide clear evidence of compliance to auditors. 

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 compliance in very short time: End-to-End (E2E) Compliance. 

Due to its relative newness, the term is often met with mixed emotions — excitement, but also skepticism and confusion over what exactly constitutes E2E Compliance and how it can be achieved practically.

Defining E2E Compliance

At its core, E2E simply describes a process that takes a service from beginning to end, delivering a complete functional system. 

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. 

This process, which can only be achieved through automation, covers both existing regulations and new rules or changes, thereby integrating horizon scanning and change management into the overall flow. 

In an ideal 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, 4) easily produce records of their compliance activities, and 5) generate useful reporting dashboards. 

E2E as a Pathway to Better Business 

A study of other industries provides us with much encouragement about the achievability of E2E.

E2E unlocks a number of exciting opportunities. Automating the bulk of the manual tasks that plague the process, like scouring the web for regulatory changes and connecting them to internal policies, will save significant time and reduce the risk of errors that could lead to undesired consequences including fines, suspensions, reputational damage. Alerts help drive action that will allow companies to stay ahead of regulation. Automated audit trails and reporting capabilities bring much-needed relief to regulatory examinations. Overall, there are more ways to knit the process together than ever before without requiring so much laborious, manual work to see results.

A study of other industries provides us with much encouragement about the achievability of E2E. Marketing was one of, if not the first, industries to widely adopt automation and AI technologies on a massive scale. Literally thousands of MarTech solutions are available today that help businesses compile a 360 degree view of their customers and to produce and distribute hyper-targeted marketing messages based on demography, geography, behavior, intent, and a whole slew of other markers that would be impossible to tap into without some form of automation. 

The shipping and logistics industry has also made incredible advancements due in no small part to innovation powerhouses like Amazon. An E2E shipping and logistics process today combines multiple, integrated solutions to track and manage inventory, storage, and distribution, giving the business complete visibility into every minute detail, down to whether one of their trucks turns right or left — or more importantly, whether that truck should turn right or left depending on traffic patterns and delivery schedules.

As industries like marketing and shipping have been transformed by E2E, so will it be for compliance. The only question that remains is not necessarily of when, but of how. 

A Practical Approach

That a variety of solutions are available is an advantage as it allows firms to build a fully integrated technology stack that is unique and optimal for their specific business. 

The most common misconception that financial firms have about E2E Compliance is that it can be accomplished with one vendor. While an attractive vision, it’s one that is simply unattainable (at least in the foreseeable future) considering the massive complexity and scope of regulation.

On its face, this may seem like a disheartening and unwelcome truth, but again we can take cues from industries like marketing and shipping. Both have fully embraced both automation and the concept of E2E and yet no single one-size-fits-all solution dominates either market; quite the contrary in fact. That a variety of solutions are available — and this applies to regulatory technology as well — is an advantage as it allows firms to build a fully integrated technology stack that is unique and optimal for their specific business. 

The first step businesses must take on the pathway to E2E Compliance is to outline their processes and engage with the market to identify which aspects are possible to automate. Firms will find, as we have, that the upfront lift of regulatory research and analysis can certainly be automated, along with a number of other points in the process that RegTechs of all shapes and sizes today are ready to address. 

Ascent can play an integral part in E2E Compliance by providing customers with the ability to automatically identify the obligations and ongoing rule changes that apply to their specific business, then to connect that regulatory knowledge to their other systems via automation. Ascent achieves this on a level of granularity and scale that simply was not possible a decade ago.

As the market leaders in developing Regulation AI — artificial intelligence built uniquely for the regulatory compliance industry — Ascent is forging a new path to help our customers in the financial services industry not only automate and scale their compliance programs, but to make E2E Compliance a reality rather than a vision of a faraway future.

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Jul 01
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Better by Design (Thinking): How We Combine Sprints with Customer-Obsession to Drive Product

By Blog, Culture, Tech

At Ascent, we strive to approach each and every challenge with this mindset that promotes first of all empathy, then understanding, then innovation, and finally a “best-fit” solution.

By Subha Sriram, VP Product 

A design thinking mindset is perhaps one of the most important assets for a company as it searches for innovative solutions to problems both anticipated and unexpected. At Ascent, we strive to approach each and every challenge with this mindset that promotes first of all empathy, then understanding, then innovation, and finally a “best-fit” solution.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking synthesizes analytical, divergent, and convergent thinking in the various stages of its workflow to finally arrive at the optimal solution.

The term “design thinking” can be traced back to 1987; however, the concept of design thinking has been around for much longer than that. The design thinking model stands as a counterpoint to the more traditional method of problem solving. 

What are the differences between these two schools of thought?

The “traditional” approach starts out with a clearly delineated problem. Then, a consensus solution to that problem is proposed. The bulk of the problem solving in such a methodology involves moving through a linear series of steps until the consensus solution is finally achieved, or revised according to its utility.

Design thinking, on the other hand, turns such a process on its head. Problem-solvers strive to examine a number of divergent solutions at the outset of the process, and then test such solutions to determine their “fit.” Design thinking synthesizes analytical, divergent, and convergent thinking in the various stages of its workflow to finally arrive at the optimal solution.

Customer-Obsession Creates Better Outcomes

Active listening makes it that much easier for our customers to buy into our solution. They become stakeholders from day one, which is a win for everyone involved.

Customer-obsession is one of our core values. Being a customer-centric company means that our approach to problem-solving reflects our keen interest in empathizing with our customers, understanding the root cause of their frustrations and pain points, and designing systems and services that specifically meet their unique needs.

The design thinking methodology provides the freedom we need to actively listen to our customers from the very start of the problem-solving process. It’s easy to sit behind a desk and say: “This is what you need.” But when designers go beyond just serving briefs and make it a point to hear out the customer with an open mind, then the end solution is almost inevitably superior to what may have been our original conception.

As an added benefit, our active listening makes it that much easier for our customers to buy into our solution. They become stakeholders from day one, which is a win for everyone involved.

How We Implement Design Thinking

Of course, as with any high-level concept, design thinking needs a framework of practical application to be useful in the real world. What we do at Ascent is utilize design sprints to help us meet customer needs – and design thinking is an integral part of such sprints.

Our design sprints are adapted from the popular Google Design Sprint methodology. Our process involves 5 key steps:

  • Conducting empathy interviews. We make it a point to be transparent and open with our interview subjects. We don’t always know the best-fit solution for their problems, which is why we probe, and dig, and explore their perspective. It’s vital that in this initial stage, we don’t try to interject our own values or perspectives into the conversation. This is all about them being heard; our role is to listen, clarify, and confirm.
  • Selecting a target focus. Once we’ve consolidated and analyzed all the data from our interviews, we determine what our design focal point should be. We come up with some preliminary sketches to serve as a rough outline of our objectives and potential solutions.
  • Prioritizing sketches. Next, we prioritize the sketches according to several criteria, such as how well the proposed solution would meet our objectives, its practicality, its functionality, and so on. 
  • Prototyping the experience. We then begin work on a prototype, or multiple prototypes, and look to stitch together the whole experience. We want to present the end-to-end experience that we hope our customers will enjoy upon the project’s completion.
  • Conducting usability sessions. Finally, we once more enlist the participation of our customers and stakeholders via usability sessions. We gather feedback from our customers, and begin iterations of the base design.

By implementing design thinking in such a way, we’ve been able to streamline our entire design process, involve our customers from start to finish, and provide the best possible solutions, instead of simply the most convenient.

Design Thinking in Action

Design is ultimately an expression of how humans can efficiently and effectively perform the job at hand. It’s not just a means to an end – it is an integral part of the final product.

Here’s an example of the value of design thinking in action here at Ascent:

We had been receiving feedback from our customers that they wanted an easy, intuitive way to navigate a specific feature. Because this aspect of our platform was not intuitive, customers were not finding the information they were looking for quickly enough, which actually led to them questioning the credibility of the product. Yikes! This is a classic example of the importance of empathy: while this issue may not have seemed so important from our end (because we know first-hand from building the product that the data is right), the customers didn’t have that level of transparency or product knowledge and therefore could only assume that an inability to find the information in the way they were accustomed to meant that was a problem with the information itself. 

We took measures to more fully understand the scope and nature of this problem. We initiated a two-and-a-half-week design sprint, and adhered to our 5-step design thinking process. We conducted interviews with a variety of customers and internal stakeholders. We took the resultant information, sketched, prioritized, and prototyped, and finally began usability testing. 

In the end, the results were overwhelmingly positive. Our customers were thrilled that we had not only listened to their concerns, but had taken proactive measures to overcome the challenges that they were facing. Even though this design sprint resulted in a fundamental paradigm shift in the way we processed rule updates, in the end our customers and stakeholders were completely satisfied, and we learned a lot from the whole experience.

Great Design is More than a Means to an End

At Ascent, design thinking is an integral part of what we do, and its principles of empathy, listening, and humanity are a reflection of who we are as a team. 

Design is ultimately an expression of how humans can efficiently and effectively perform the job at hand. It’s not just a means to an end – it is an integral part of the final product.

 

Interested in joining us? Check out our open roles below. 

Careers

 

 

May 21
Love1

What The Tech? Natural Language Processing Demystified

By Blog

Thanks to NLP, computers are helping us solve the biggest challenges in regulatory compliance through their ability to scan, group, structure, and analyze massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently.

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 other (what to say). Then you learned grammar (how to say things). Eventually you developed a mastery over the nuances of language that enable you to understand and communicate complex ideas.

For many reasons, we want computers to understand natural human language.

Natural language processing (NLP), then, is the discipline of computer science that deals with teaching computers to understand natural human language — to grasp its peculiarities, interpret what we mean when we’re being vague, understand a range of human voices, and to recognize, group, and structure words and phrases by using context clues, like humans would.

When you ask Alexa in the morning whether it’s going to rain, “her” ability to comprehend and respond is a product of NLP.

When Google autofills your search query (sometimes with hilarious results), that’s a product of NLP.

Ever send a voice text message in the car? That’s NLP too.

Not surprisingly, the use of creative language to describe unexpected relationships, such as metaphors, is tough to parse. Sarcasm and irony are things most teenagers around the world have mastered, but not computers. Humor remains difficult to understand and interpret, especially across cultures, but the work continues, and progress is being made.

Computers are learning to understand abstract relationships and interpret evolving language. Gmail can predict with impressive intuitiveness what the end of your sentence will be as you’re typing it. Programs can detect the sentiment of Yelp reviews. New mobile apps can transcribe speech to text (and distinguish between different voices). At this moment, data scientists somewhere are probably trying to code an explanation for why love is like a red, red rose, and someone is no doubt teaching a computer program how to tell a joke.

However, the true value of using computers for language-related needs lies in their ability to process much more data much faster than a human ever could.

Thanks to NLP, computers are helping us solve the biggest challenges in regulatory compliance through their ability to scan, group, structure, and analyze massive amounts of data quickly and efficiently.

Let’s say we wanted to read and review regulation related to benchmarking in a specific region over the last 25 years. Even the most diligent and ambitious law intern may find her eyes glazed over by the hundredth page. Thing is, this job doesn’t need a human brain to read all those published regulations, looking for the word “education” and the name of a country.

Instead, a computer program can be tasked with finding the instances that contain a specific set of terms in relationship to each other, and noting those for further analysis. That’s where the human can take over and do what he or she does best — the critical thinking needed to reach a conclusion about the data.

When it comes to regulatory compliance, the pace, scale, and complexity of change is daunting.

Global financial regulation is a global, interconnected beast, and those in the field who are tasked with roping and taming this bucking bronco are not infrequently dragged through the dirt by their chaps. Just reading and studying regulatory text may take an entire team or an army of lawyers, and many times the one question leadership wants answered is simply, “Tell me what we need to comply with, and when.”

That’s why we use technologies like NLP to rapidly analyze millions of lines of text so that people don’t have to.

Combined with other AI technologies like machine learning, NLP helps us understand each customer’s specific business requirements and then map the proper regulatory obligations to that customer. Armed with this technology, risk and compliance officers know their exact regulatory obligations and which rule changes apply to their business, without the hours of researching online, reading, and analyzing.

 

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Ascent helps financial services firms identify their regulatory obligations and keep them updated as rules change. Our targeted regulatory intelligence helps you avoid fines and reduce risk, while lowering your overall cost to comply. Learn more.

May 09
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The Magic Mix of Tech, People, and Culture — What Makes Ascent an Exciting Place to Work

By Blog, Culture, Tech

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 for the future that we all get to have a hand in building.

By Arbela Takhsh, Chief Operating Officer

From the moment I first learned of Ascent, I had an inkling that this young company was building something unique. However, it wasn’t until a casual conversation over coffee with Ascent’s Founder and CEO Brian Clark that I fully appreciated its potential to radically transform the market.

I’m no stranger to technological innovation. From my decades spent building and scaling tech products at companies like Motorola, Google, Comcast, and Gogo, I know that achieving the right balance of market need, technological capability, talent, and culture to successfully bring a product to market is incredibly difficult — and rare. 

By the time we’d finished our coffee, I knew I wanted to join Ascent on their mission to leverage cutting-edge technology to build a world that’s not constricted, but empowered by the rule of law.

As Brian — a former Chief Compliance Officer and “recovering lawyer” (as he likes to say) — talked me through the company’s vision, the technology they were building, and the powerhouse team he’d assembled, a realization began to crystallize — these folks were on to something special. By the time we’d finished our coffee, I knew I wanted to join Ascent on their mission to leverage cutting-edge technology to build a world that’s not constricted, but empowered by the rule of law.

I have been in the tech industry my entire career, and my enthusiasm to join the Ascent team was due in large part to their work with emergent technologies. We see that terms like “natural language processing”, “machine learning”, and “artificial intelligence” are everywhere and largely used as buzzwords. 

Ascent however is continuing to make a real and significant technology investment, building a highly innovative data architecture and data engineering platform, a very unique data processing pipeline, and customer applications using cutting-edge technologies and languages. Our mission is to deliver knowledge powered by our expertise in artificial intelligence, technology, and the domain of regulatory compliance.

Our team is building what we call Regulation AI from the ground up. This innovation in regulatory technology allows us to automate the most challenging aspects of compliance work in a way that’s more intelligent, more actionable, and more transformative than what was deemed possible even a few years ago. Ascent isn’t just another SaaS platform; it’s a unique and fundamentally new approach to producing knowledge that goes far beyond mining data for insights and wrapping it up in a user-friendly interface. The application of this technology in the multi-billion dollar compliance industry is groundbreaking and has the potential for delivering massive value to the world of financial services and beyond. 

Most engineers and other technical people I’ve met thrive on the opportunity to not only work with exciting technologies, but to actively shape the world with them. That’s the opportunity that awaits at Ascent.

Most engineers and other technical people I’ve met thrive on the opportunity to not only work with exciting technologies, but to actively shape the world with them. That’s the opportunity that awaits at Ascent. 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 for the future that we all get to have a hand in building. 

I mentioned earlier that success comes not from a great idea, but in the magical amalgamation of technology, people, and culture. It’s not enough that Ascent is building an amazing product; culture plays a crucial role in our ability to deliver and scale. Our core values of Integrity, Cooperation, Persistence, Customer Obsession, and Innovation are integral to how we show up each and every day. Our values work naturally toward a strong company culture that builds enthusiasm among our team.

I believe everything starts and ends with creating real value for our customers. I strongly promote customer-focused strategies, operating cadence, and performance indicators that measure success in the eyes of those actually using our product.

As the person responsible for driving technological and operational excellence here at Ascent, I believe everything starts and ends with creating real value for our customers. I strongly promote customer-focused strategies, operating cadence, and performance indicators that measure success in the eyes of those actually using our product. This deep commitment to the customer is reflected in all that we do and furthermore, it’s how we generate sustainable business value and drive operational scale while building a strong culture driven by our values.

As the inventors of Regulation AI, we thrive on creating solutions that will help businesses grow unencumbered by complex regulation without compromising consumer protection. 

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention, and every team member at Ascent understands how necessary this technology is to the future of financial services. As the inventors of Regulation AI, we thrive on creating solutions that will help businesses grow unencumbered by complex regulation without compromising consumer protection. 

For many, the opportunity to shape the technology of the future indicates a cool job opportunity. Expanding that opportunity into the ability to provide transformative solutions that span the globe? That’s career-altering. 

With customers from global financial institutions around the world, we’re on the fast path to major market impact. Now, we’re on a mission to build the best team in the world.

Interested in joining us? Check out our open roles below. 

Careers

 

May 08
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Solution Highlight: How Ascent Automates Regulatory Change Management

By Blog

Ascent for Regulatory Change Management

Ascent offers targeted regulatory knowledge — in other words, the obligations that are relevant for your firm, broken down in granular detail so you know exactly what you need to do to stay in compliance.

READ MORE: What are granular regulatory obligations and why are they important?


While there are many ways that financial institutions can leverage Ascent’s knowledge to improve their compliance operations, one of the most important and common use cases is regulatory change management. Below is an overview of Ascent’s capabilities that allow you to easily surface relevant rule changes and determine how they impact your firm. 

READ MORE: A tech-based approach to Regulatory Change Management


Regulatory Change Feed

Ascent’s regulatory change feed surfaces rule additions or amendments that are relevant to your firm. 

screenshot of Ascent's Regulatory Change Feed

Clicking on any of the document titles leads you to the full PDF of the document, which you can share with colleagues or download. Ascent’s disposition feature allows you to mark documents as in need of review by colleagues.

Screenshot of Ascent Rule Change Documents

Rule Compare

Ascent provides a side-by-side comparison of the current and previous version of the rule with the differences redlined. Easily scan the rule text and see what has changed.

Screenshot Ascent Rule Compare

Impacted Obligations

With every rule change, Ascent indicates the impact to your obligations register, showing whether you have new obligations, deleted obligations, or changed obligations due to the change.

Screenshot of Ascent Impact Analysis

Drill into the details of how your obligations have changed. Every obligation is presented at its most granular level, meaning the individual action that your firm must take (or refrain from taking) in order to be compliant. Each obligation is accompanied by crucial data such as the rule number it came from (giving you utmost transparency and traceability) and the effective date. 

Screenshot of Ascent Obligation

Narrowing your regulatory universe

Ascent provides the most relevant information at every step of the change management process, ensuring you know exactly how rule amendments impact your business. 

  • Provides all regulatory documents that include rule changes relevant to your firm
  • Synthesizes those documents into rules and shows you how the rule itself has changed
  • Synthesizes the rules into obligations targeted to your firm

 

Interesting in learning more about how Ascent can help you manage regulatory change more effectively? Contact us to schedule a demo or talk to a sales team member.