Compliance leaders are at the center of a transformational time in regulatory compliance and risk management.
This article provides insights as to how Compliance technology can help stay on top.
From cost centre to growth lever.
Once thought of as a cost centre, compliance is increasingly seen as an asset that can drive business growth. Compliance is no longer just a tick-the-box exercise to satisfy the regulators—it can also win and retain business.
However, challenges remain: Many compliance officers struggle with how to best support their firm’s growth while facing the mandate to do more with less. As companies rely on technology to conduct business more than ever, risks around insider trading, electronic communications and cybersecurity are increasing in volume and complexity. Compliance officers have to both adjust the scope of their oversight, but also their techniques for conducting that oversight.
Compliance leaders are turning to technology for help. According to research from Thomson Reuters, 49% of survey respondents said they are considering RegTech solutions to manage compliance, which was a 34% increase since their 2021 report.
Through RegTech, compliance officers are finding ways to track and monitor compliance activities across the firm from one place, eliminate tedious manual tasks through automation and/or outsourcing, and feel confident that their compliance data is consistent, reliable, and secure.
Given that the majority of compliance cost still originates from manual processing, improvements in the processing space can significantly increase efficiencies and reduce costs. And when RegTech is implemented thoughtfully and strategically, compliance officers and adviser can spend their time where it’s truly needed.
The future of compliance is smart, data-driven automation.
Regardless of the sector, the capacity to demonstrate effective compliance will mean the generation of significantly more data for companies. This data must be addressed robustly, analysed and reported appropriately and comprehensively. This requires technology that is smart enough to address all these challenges, but simple enough to install, use and maintain.
Data-driven automation will allow scale that is out of reach to incumbent operating models, with advisers able to deliver improved service to significantly more clients at the same time as materially reducing the administrative burden with each advice case.
RegTech providers are providing the backbone of the next phase in the evolution of the capital markets by creating solutions that will fully digitalise the financial system.
Cloud-based RegTech solutions, powered by emerging technologies, will continue to play a significant role that goes beyond automation, offering advanced cognitive computing (AI), adaptive algorithms, and predictive analytics with deep machine learning for interpreting new regulations and near real-time reporting.
With the future ever more likely to be driven by regulators wishing to improve supervisory capacity, RegTech 3.0, as the term is coined, will fulfil the pursuit of a regulatory framework for the digital age and with that, clarity and efficiency into the way in which regulation is interpreted, how compliance is managed and most of all how reporting is and will be automated.
Future-proofing compliance through platform solutions.
Financial institutions don’t want to work with six or seven different vendors to meet their requirements – which is often the current situation. This isn’t fit for purpose as it is over-complicated to manage, and the different solutions are often not easily integrated together. Financial institutions looking for future-proof solutions should be looking for a single vendor for functions which logically fit together. They need to think about compliance solutions from a platform perspective, along the whole corporate lifecycle, to be able to build-out new use cases quickly and integrate third-party sources at reduced cost.
Indeed, given tighter compliance budgets, gaining attention in 2023 will be regtech software that looks more like platforms upon which users can customize, configure, and self-service their own unique needs. This “buy-to-build” option avoids the upfront costs of coding from scratch and avoids the costs of having to swap out inflexible vendors.
A one-stop-shop approach.
This is where Complii can help: a one-stop-shop complete compliance platform with a modular approach and enough customisation.
Our secure digital platform is based on customisable software designed to automate, record and report on an AFS Licensee’s and Brokers compliance obligations.
Complii automates functions such as sending ROA’s/SOA’s emails based off client profiles, 708 8 expiry register, FOFA FDS letter auto-generation and electronic opt-in, online client profiles updates, disclosures, breach register, Chinese walls, internal compliance and much more.