The REGTECH Book

The Power of RegTech to Drive Cultural Change and Enhance Conduct Risk Management Across Banking

By Susanne Chishti¹

¹CEO and Founder, FINTECH Circle and FINTECH Circle Institute Bestselling Co-Editor of The FinTech Book, The WealthTech Book and The InsurTech Book

The complexity of financial services such as trading activities and the amount of data (both structured and unstructured) involved in trade surveillance, market abuse monitoring, and compliance management overall requires cutting-edge technologies. In today’s world, compliance without technology to support it is ineffective and costly – a small error of oversight can have catastrophic effects if regulatory breaches cannot be prevented.¹

Since the financial crisis, the world’s biggest banks have been fined $321 billion, according to data from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). These fines were the result of numerous failings from money laundering to market manipulation since 2008. Regulatory requirements continue to increase. The number of rule changes that banks must track on a daily basis has tripled since 2011, to an average of 200 revisions a day based on BCG’s report.²

However, senior managers (not only across financial services) continue to fail to set the right tone from the top on business ethics, EY’s ‘Fraud Survey 2017’ found. Of board members or senior managers, 77% said they could justify unethical behaviour to help a business survive, with one in three willing to offer cash payments to win or retain business. ...