Happy new year everyone. If you are still on leave, enjoy your last days. If you are impacted by the terrible Australian bush fires, we are thinking of you and your families – stay safe. If you are back at your desk, welcome back.

As we start our 2020 journey, I wanted to do a recap of 2019 but also use this as an opportunity to point forward to some key themes.

Recently, we released our first RegTech Industry Report: The Founders’ Perspective, that coincided with the call for submissions from the Australian Federal Government through their Senate Select Committee for RegTech and FinTech. You can view the RTA Senate Select submission here.

The coalescence of these initiatives could not have happened at a better time. 

This is a golden age for the RegTech opportunity. There’s unprecedented focus on RegTech, the fines for regulatory non-compliance are growing and there’s prediction that globally the industry will spend in excess of $127 billion by 2024.

In summary, there will be focus by us on various critical key areas and over the next few months we will releasing a series of videos and podcasts that discuss these:

1. Capital: Develop an expanded RegTech value proposition to a range of investors including Corporate VC.
2. Increased recognition: The role of RegTech in bringing efficiency, productivity and trust.
3. New customer segments: Explore customer segments with optimal ability to adapt and adopt.
4. Explore export markets: We are looking to NZ, Singapore and UK – those geographies emerging as strongest contenders for export markets in our recent research.

At the end of last year, RTA member Ascent RegTech summarised the last 12 months very well in their blog post. In particular, their points that RegTech has crossed the chasm and that regulators went on the record about RegTech. The ‘if not (RegTech), why not’ message is loud and clear. ASIC succinctly wrapped up their current RegTech Symposium series with a report that can be downloaded here.

The RTA are working hard to assist in achieving these outcomes and are working with Government and the Regulators through our various committees, round tables and co-designed events to ensure that key messages are delivered, collaboration remains high and outcomes are produced. We need to speed up the process to generate commercial outcomes sooner, rather than later. An impressive 91% of our members achieved full production over the last 12 months, but we still have work to do in smoothing the procurement path to get to faster adoption.

Another RTA Member, Encompass’s Alex Ford reflected in her response to our Research report, outlining the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence and that it elevates humans to higher order operations and risk management to gain more effective and productive outcomes.

“Digital technologies, including intelligent process automation and artificial intelligence, are proven as more effective at analysing data than humans. Delegating this work to digital technologies frees KYC analysts to focus on judging intricacies of complex situations, making high quality and informed decisions, and taking actions which protect their institutions and the wider Australian economy against the corrosive impacts of financial crime. Banks, government and other regulated entities need to be prepared to make the investment.”

My parting remark here is this significant and often overlooked fact: RegTech is sector agnostic. All regulated industry verticals can benefit from RegTech.

If you’d like to join our movement and be part of the RTA membership, www.regtech.org.au/join or to secure your tickets for our #ACCELERATERegTech2020 event on 17 March, www.regtech.org.au/accelerate2020

Thanks and I wish you a successful 2020.

Deborah

Links:

RegTech Industry Report: The Founders’ Perspective

RTA Senate Select Response

Ascent wraps up 2019 trends and forecasts 2020

Encompass talk the importance of AI

ASIC's RegTech Initiatives 2018-2019 Report

Deborah Young is the Founding CEO of The RegTech Association (RTA) and has a long history in advocacy that requires pushing boundaries into new frontiers. She is based in Sydney, Australia. The RTA is non-profit, headquartered in Australia, has a global membership of 120 organisations including RegTechs and Corporates. RTA supports a global centre of excellence for RegTech and has a clear mission to accelerate adoption.