FCA turns to Wolters Kluwer for Regulatory Reporting Expertise at RegTech Event

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has asked Wolters Kluwer to be the subject matter expert for all things regulatory reporting at its TechSprint event this week. The event, sometimes referred to as a “hackathon” and titled “Unlocking Regulatory Reporting,” is designed to improve the interface between the watchdog and regulated firms, allowing participating firms to discuss the practical uses of RegTech.

According to the FCA, “RegTech is a sub-set of FinTech that focuses on technologies that may facilitate the delivery of regulatory requirements more efficiently and effectively than existing capabilities.”  Wolters Kluwer has been prominent in the RegTech space recently, having published a major white paper on the subject. RegTech systems are being increasingly embraced by banks, as noted in a recent research by Wolters Kluwer. “RegTech is devoted exclusively to compliance and related issues, such as risk analysis and management,” the finance, risk and reporting tech vendor notes. “One promising feature of the technology is that it should be able to work with existing systems since RegTech tends to be heavier on software than hardware. Such systems should keep institutions ahead of the game by allowing them to keep track of, and adjust to, new rules as soon as they are implemented.”

“The ability for technology solutions to handle mounting regulatory reporting challenges, in a much more timely manner, is going to be an ongoing challenge for the industry,” says Richard Bennett, EMEA vice president of Regulatory Reporting for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business. “Accordingly, RegTech systems are being embraced by banks and regulators alike and are occupying an expanding segment of the broader FinTech universe. This week’s event is a truly innovative way of sharing experiences and ideas with our peers and the industry at large. And the opportunity to work collaboratively with the FCA on the subject demonstrates the willingness and commitment of the regulator to convene parties and work with them to assess and solve problems at the regulatory interface.”

The FCA TechSprint is the second such event this year and allows the regulator to engage collaboratively with the industry to encourage the development and adoption of solutions that improve regulatory outcomes. This week’s event brings together a cross-section of firms, including financial services providers, consultancies and technology companies, to develop technology ideas to help address the cost, efficiency and effectiveness of regulatory reporting. The event ultimately hopes to prompt the industry to develop technology solutions to streamline regulatory reporting and improve understanding of compliance requirements. It will also serve as a starting point for future more focused work streams led by relevant parties.

The event is part of the regulator’s “Project Innovate.” The FCA says it has  “recognized that there is an opportunity to bring market participants together to work collaboratively on shared challenges to assess and solve problems at the regulatory interface.” The watchdog notes that it  “piloted a 2-day TechSprint event (sometimes called a ‘hackathon’) in April 2016. This technology and innovation event was held to support an Occasional Paper on ‘Access to financial services’ that we published on 24 May 2016. To our knowledge it was a global first for a regulator to hold an event of this kind.”

More than 100 developers and 30 organizations will be participating in the TechSprint and experts from the Bank of England will be observing. Besides Wolters Kluwer others participating include: Accenture, Barclays, Credit Suisse, PA Consulting, PWC and Santander as well as post graduate students from UCL and Cambridge University.