Uncovering applications of RegTech within the financial services space, report from recent Regtech Summit

Last week, GECKO Governance attended the Regtech Summit, the industry’s only end user driven conference that focuses purely on the applications of RegTech within the financial services space.  In this blog post, we shall present some highlights of the conference, which featured major industry players such as Deloitte, HSBC, Credit Suisse and ESMA as well as startups with expertise in the Regtech area.

Mark Tantam of Deloitte conducted the keynote interview under the topic New opportunities through Innovation – The evolving role of Regtech. His guests were Ruth Wandhofer, Global Head of Regulatory and Market Strategy, Citi Transaction Services and Lara Werner, Chief Compliance and regulatory officer, Credit Suisse.

Lara Werner said that she felt that with the pace of change in regulation, companies take too much time getting things right and the preventative side of compliance needs more discussion and development. Within this, the panel discussed ALM/KYC and the need to make Blockchain development more efficient, and combined with the linking of audit trails and data managers, strict identity checks are required.  Data mining is a challenge that needs to be overcome, especially the balance between automation and manual checks.

The next discussion was about the Role of the Regulators. The panel included a wealth of experience; Matt Homer, Senior policy advisor, USAID (US Agency for International Development), Nick Cook, Head of Department, Market Intelligence, Data and Analysis, FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) and Olga Petrenko, Markets integrity – Markets Division, ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority). The panel discussed that all regulators are in different places in terms of their application of technology, and that in some cases, their knowledge of technology is low. They also said that with the addition of new tech, whilst it removes one element of risk, it might add another layer of complexity. With an emphasis on Blockchain and ALM/KYC, the panel conceded it has the capacity to be totally disruptive, but it is required to fit into the existing infrastructure as it stands. Therefore, a sandboxed solution might be required so that systems can be run side-by-side for a time to prove the concept. There will be opportunities for consultants. As to where we are as an industry, the panel felt we were in the 3rd innings; that there were still time and opportunities to bring new ideas to the table, but they need to be near to market or market ready.

Alongside the summit, there was space to showcase companies in the Regtech space.

These exhibitors, along with GECKO Governance included:

• Corlytics,
• CUBE
• Datactics
• Kyckr
• Qumram
• Redowl
• WordFlow

After a break for networking, the next panel consisted of bankers, investors and startups under the heading of Using RegTech to Overcome Key Regulatory Pain Points. The panel consisted of Chad Giussani, Head, Compliance, Operations FM, Standard Chartered Bank, Kevin Barry, Head of Investment IT & Change, Henderson Global Investors, Jan-Maarten Mulder, Angel Investor & Founder, Summer Capital and Jane Jee, CEO, Kompli Limited.

Kevin Barry made three key points during this discussion.

• Find out the scale of the regulation
• Understand the regulation
• Deliver a cost effective solution for the regulation.

Jane Jee of Kompli added that the key function of any solution has to be that it can perform real-time actions.

Following on from this,  Demystifying RegTech – How Solutions Are Being Developed brought together Robin M Trott, EMEA Head Electronic Trading – Futures, Clearing and Collateral, Citi,

Jeremy Sosabowski, Chief Executive Officer,  AlgoDynamix and Mark Beeston, Managing Partner & Founder, Illuminate.

Jeremy Sosabowski spoke that any new Fintech solution has to be radically better, but it’s hard to deal with ultra conservative banks which can be hard to network and engage with. Mark Beeston said that the competitive advantages of big banks; cost, control, capital and compliance is gone. Any new solution has to fix an old problem; it has to be 10 times better or 10 times cheaper.

Next followed a talk about Using Blockchain as a regulatory reporting solution with Stephen Moran, Innovation manager, Bank of Ireland and Lory Kehoe, Director – Consulting, Deloitte. They gave a live demonstration of an internal proof of concept trial of Blockchain between Deloitte and Bank of Ireland, which showed how Blockchain can be used, not just for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. It can also be used to send files, documents; in fact any form of data.

Overall, the RegTech Summit was a great experience for GECKO Governance. It was a fantastic opportunity to showcase our product to the wider players in The City. We gained fantastic insight into the other players within the industry and where exactly leading industry figures are in the development of RegTech solutions. Our thanks to ESN www.eventcreationnetwork.com who organised this excellent event, as well as lead sponsors Deloitte.

Startup Business Showcase : GECKO Governance

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