Government to invest up to $15B in support of SME lending

The Morrison Government today announced an investment of up to $15 billion to enable smaller lenders to continue supporting Australian consumers and small businesses.

The Government’s actions will enable customers of smaller lenders to continue to access affordable credit as the world deals with the significant challenges presented by the spread of coronavirus.

Small lenders are critical to Australia’s lending markets, often driving innovation and providing competition for larger lenders.

This funding will complement the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA’s) announcement of a $90 billion  term funding facility for authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) that will also support lending to small and medium enterprises.

Combined, these measures will support the continued ability of lenders to support their customers and in doing so the Australian economy.

The Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) will be provided with an investment capacity of $15 billion to invest in wholesale funding markets used by small ADIs and non-ADI lenders.

The $15 billion capacity would allow the AOFM to support a substantial volume of expected issuance by these lenders over a 12 month period.

Importantly the assets being purchased by the AOFM will not be limited to residential mortgage backed securities.  The AOFM will also be able to invest in a range of other asset backed securities and warehouse facilities. The Government will provide the AOFM with investment guidelines that will outline the basis on which the AOFM is to undertake these investments.

Enabling legislation will be introduced in the week commencing Monday, 23 March 2020.  The AOFM is expected to be able to begin investing by April.

The winners of the RegTech Association’s RegTech Awards 2020 were announced at an inaugural #RegTechExcellenceintheCloud event beamed globally on Tuesday night. Around 100 people from more than 60 organisations globally attended the online broadcast.

This year’s awards featured brand-new categories recognising RTA members who have achieved the greatest impact over the past year.  More information here.

To all our supporters and members

I write to inform you that, in consultation with the critical mass of sponsors and stakeholders, this morning the RegTech board took the decision to postpone our annual #ACCELERATERegTech conference and expo, and all associated events, scheduled from 16 to 17 March.

We will share with you our plans as soon as we’ve had the chance to assess the various options and factor in the limitations the ongoing COVID-19 emergency will place on us.

While #ACCELERATERegTech is still in its infancy, we firmly believe that itis evolving into the key networking and learning event for our sector. We are committed to re-framing the event and looking for suitable alternate dates and formats in the future. 

In the interim, if you’ve got any queries please contact us on members@regtech.org.au.

My sincere apologies for any inconvenience this postponement may cause you. 

Stay well and I look forward to speaking to you soon.

Deborah Young
CEO
The RegTech Association

Please bookmark this page for updates as they come to hand.

ACCELERATE RegTech 2020

Senator, The Hon. Jane Hume has announced new laws have been passed to drive fintech innovation and competition in the financial sector with the creation of a fintech regulatory sandbox.

The sandbox allows fintechs to test new products and services for 24 months without obtaining a financial services licence or a credit licence from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). It will provide a safe environment to help fintechs create a minimum viable product to take to market – to work out if their products and services are robust and have value for consumers.

By removing barriers to entry for new fintechs, the regulatory sandbox will enable greater competition in the financial system, which is critical in ensuring that both consumers and businesses get value for money from the financial products and services they use.

More information here.  https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jane-hume-2019/media-releases/new-laws-passed-drive-fintech-innovation-and-competition

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.

“Despite clear signs of adoption from corporate and government as customers of RegTech, investors have been slow to realize the promise of this space for achieving returns.” Deborah Young CEO of The RegTech Association. 

Read more here. 

#regtech #regtechmatters #trust #transparency #invest

Australia stands at the brink of global regulatory revolution - where technology will enable corporates to automatically comply, monitor and respond to financial regulation.

The RegTech Association has launched today the first phase of their research that provides a snapshot of their RegTech firms as at November 2019, tracks what the solutions are, who the current customers are, where there is most traction and importantly where their capital is sourced.

Download the Report here. Download the press release here.

All media enquiries to Kelly Bernardi

The RegTech industry in Australia has seen explosive growth and now government is looking to the opportunities. Read more.

Scientia Professor Ross Buckley,  KPMG Law - KWM Professor Disruptive Innovation, UNSW and Deborah Young CEO of The RegTech Association (Australia).

"RegTech is the next inevitable evolution of regulation. It’s time that top decision-makers across regulated sectors seized this opportunity – as a means to jump start the economy and to rebuild trust in our institutions.

The next two years will be crucial in determining which markets generate the RegTech solutions that will inevitably underpin global financial services going forward."

https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/biglaw/26879-realising-regtech-a-new-system-for-economic-health