Elly Yates-Roberts |
Regulatory technology (regtech), which was born out of the banking crisis of 2008, has been the latest and greatest revolution in applied business technology in recent years. Designed to assist financial institutions in achieving regulatory compliance, regtech is becoming something of a UK technology industry phenomenon.
This discipline continues its expansion unabated and is a very recent British success story. While it is now bringing undoubted value to drive compliance within organisations in the finance sector and beyond, as well as spreading its influence rapidly to countless countries around the world; it has another accidental appliance, it’s effectively supporting Brexit. In other words, regtech is fast becoming Brextech.
The process of exiting from the European Union will impact business and slow it down. Countless policy and standards amendments will affect almost every organisation. Regulations need updating, documents need amending and distributing, employees need to re-comply. This is no small transition. If you thought that the General Data Protection Regulation was like wading across a swollen stream, wholesale Brexit policy change will be akin to Noah’s great flood. In days of old, this would have been a colossal undertaking, and to be fair, it would still be, except that’s where Brextech may very well save the day.
By applying the latest regulatory digital compliance technology to the process of Brexit and by updating countless reams of office policies and rapidly distributing them to those who need to know quickly and efficiently, the exit transition will be made smoother. With a click of a button, any employee, agent or contractor can guarantee not only that they have read up-to-date policies in minutes, but also that the organisation itself can demonstrate its readiness for Brexit changes in real time. This is a very big deal for UK business as it will save huge amounts of time, while protecting tight budgets.
And let’s not forget some of the other Brextech beneficial outcomes. Digital compliance leads to a reduction in paper for a more sustainable UK. Regtech automation reduces laborious manual updates incurred by Brexit. It also drives far faster compliance and communication of updated policies whilst supporting an increasingly mobile and agile workforce. In turn this will build a 21st-century compliance behaviour and culture. These are the kind of benefits which are going to be critical for a successful post-Brexit UK. Wherever you are and whatever your company size, look out for Brextech; it will be coming to an office near you.
Ian McNeice is Solutions Director at The RegTech Company