RegTech Insight Blogs The latest content from across the platform
Regulatory Ramp-up: AML Penalties Double, UK Legislation Goes Live
Last year saw 58 Anti-Money Laundering (AML)-related penalties handed down globally, totalling $8.14 billion – double the amount and almost double the value of 2018 figures (29 penalties at $4.27 billion), suggesting that not only are regulators cracking down with more rigour, but the stringency of their sentencing is also increasing. In this punishing environment,…
ESMA Announces Last-Minute SFTR LEI Repreive
This week ESMA released the long-awaited final guidelines for the upcoming SFTR regulation, due to come into force for most firms in April. Included in the final draft is a grace period of 12 months for the reporting of LEI codes – a reprieve that has been met with a collective sigh of relief from…
Firms Must Act Now on 5MLD Compliance – Are You Ready?
On December 20, 2019 the UK Government quietly introduced the Fifth EU Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) into UK law, coming into force on January 10, 2020 – in other words, this Friday. The Directive was introduced as part of ‘The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2019’, and is an amendment to existing regulation,…
Simplifying Compliance Tracking with User Behaviour Analytics
By James Wooster, COO, Glue42. Spending IT budget on compliance solutions is never satisfying. While the impact of fines is easy to measure, the uncertainty of the risk means that other business cases always look more attractive. The scope of MiFID II and CAT compliance has placed additional burdens on financial institutions as both require…
The Rocky Road to SFTR
It’s 2020, and SFTR implementation day is just a few short months away. But the path has not been smooth – and concerns abound over the timing, with limited information yet available from the regulator and industry-wide testing barely underway. The regulation will create a major new reporting burden for firms, along with the need…
FSB To Focus on RegTech in 2020
International financial services regulator the Financial Stability Board (FSB) has made a commitment to address the use of RegTech and SupTech (supervisory technology) in its 2020 work programme, released this week. The watchdog will continue to monitor financial innovation developments and assess their potential implications for financial stability. Complementing the recent report on BigTech in…
Expert Group Urges EU Regulatory Reform to Encourage Fintech Innovation
The European Commission Expert Group on Regulatory Obstacles to Financial Innovation has published its long-awaited report on how to improve and strengthen the regional FinTech landscape and encourage greater investment and innovation, along with ending regulatory fragmentation and establishing a more robust regulatory framework. Made up of industry experts, financial institutions, academics and lawyers,…
Industry Demands Clarity Over 5AML
With less than a month to go before the fifth EU anti-money-laundering (5AML) rule comes into force, serious concerns are being raised regarding the lack of direction from the UK Government – with no final regulation yet transposed into national law. In an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, SmartSearch CEO John Dobson…
FSB Weighs In On Risks Inherent In Cloud Adoption For Financial Service
The rapid adoption of cloud computing and data services by financial institutions could raise new implications for financial stability, warns global regulatory body the Financial Stability Board (FSB) – including a lack of transparency when it comes to legal and regulatory compliance. A new report from the FSB released this week highlights potential issues for…
12 Days of Compliance
By Philip Naughton, Partner, ACA Compliance Group. On the first day of Christmas, the industry gave to me…. twelve recurring compliance issues Unfortunately, when it comes to compliance programmes this Christmas, UK financial services firms are still making the same errors, over and over again. Recent compliance reviews carried out by ACA Compliance on financial…