RegTech Intelligence 
It might be summertime but the work hasn’t stopped for those working in compliance. The constant barrage of tweaks to existing reporting regimes and wholesale refreshes such as the incoming derivatives reporting changes by the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) have kept teams busy. In Europe, Brexit has also impacted how firms must deal with reporting processes to their local and regional regulators, with some firms compelled to change service providers as a result.
Regulators may be aiming to improve data quality and market transparency overall, and sometimes even to simplify regimes in the long term, but it all equates to more firefighting in the short term for those tasked with making the changes. Given this lack of breathing room, it has been challenging for firms to become truly strategic in their approach to reporting across the globe. The sometimes-significant discrepancies between requirements per regulator have also not helped matters.
Moreover, true global coordination among regulators is some way off—politics and national interests tend to get in the way of progress on this front. So, if we’re stuck with reporting slightly different flavours of the same thing in every global jurisdiction for some time to come, how can the industry take the time to become more strategic?
A good place to start is in assessing current digital maturity and that’s where Firebrand Research’s assessment comes into play. We’re currently benchmarking reporting processes and practices across firms to see where the industry needs to improve and where it’s already made inroads.
Our quick seven-minute assessment asks a series of questions about your firm’s reporting processes and technologies and at the end of the assessment you receive your score on the Firebrand digital maturity scale. We’ll be aggregating and anonymising all of the data to present back to the JWG membership to highlight industry trends and best practices. The hope is that these stats will help the industry and your firms gain more funding and more attention to drive forward digital transformation strategies in compliance.
The assessment can be accessed here.