app dev 1920 min

RegGenome enables application providers as part of global approach to financial regulation

RegGenome enables application providers as part of global approach to financial regulation

For application and regulation technology providers (regtechs), sourcing content from financial regulators can be a huge undertaking and a critical obstacle to growth.

Regtechs are typically created to develop innovative technological solutions. So finding and updating content from every sector and region in the world, and populating applications with it, is time-consuming and takes them away from their core focus. Then having to monitor constant developments in areas such as cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, anti-money laundering (AML), and environmental, social and governance (ESG) can make the task almost unmanageable.

What’s more, developers often have to work with applications that do not integrate across jurisdictions, or even parts of their own group. Too many parts of the compliance operation – both apps and people – don’t speak the same language. And you as a vendor have to spend valuable funds to plug your system into all of them, each and every time. 

As these issues become ever more complex and burdensome, the entry barriers for new, innovative regtechs and application providers keep rising.

RegGenome looks to solve these issues by organising and structuring content from the world’s regulators using a single, globally applicable categories of regulatory obligations rooting back to thethe Cambridge Regulatory Genome. This can save regtech firms a huge amount of time and money sourcing and organising information globally.

With RegGenome, they no longer have to burn cash building or buying content libraries, which can be one of the biggest challenges to growth. Instead, it frees providers to focus on what they do best – developing their technology.

An Open Information Structure

The University of Cambridge Regulatory Genome Project (RGP) is creating an open information structure for representing financial regulation across jurisdictions and business functions – and a root ontology of regulatory obligations that can be made available to all as a public good.

RegGenome, a founding member of the RGP, commercially offers structured content to regulated firms and third-party applications in the form of the RegGenome Services. Because its underlying ontology RegGenome content  is vendor-neutral and jurisdiction-agnostic, it is easier to map to a firm’s operations and other vendors’ ontologies; having mapped once, the content plugs into whatever application or system companies use and enables the operation of an efficient ecosystem – all powered by and speaking the same language.

Working with the Cambridge Regulatory Genome as a de facto standard removes barriers to entry for new systems. Applications become easier to replace, and easier to combine, allowing for more innovation and competition in the market. For financial firms, this removes the problem of ‘vendor lock-in’ – buying expensive software that is hard to replace once they have it.

Machine readability

Harnessing machines to read regulations allows humans more time to think. A single language for compliance allows humans to think together.

With consistent, jurisdiction-agnostic classification, every piece of regulation can be tagged and made machine readable across your clients’ organisations. A single thematic query will reveal all the information a user needs, in every relevant market. And a new global AML policy that once took months to reconcile across national operations might now take a couple of weeks. 

Interoperability

Partnering with RegGenomemeans joining a network that is actively supporting the development of a de facto standard for exchanging information about regulation. Mapping to the Cambridge Regulatory Genome framework makes regulatory documents, vendor applications, and indeed entire compliance operations interoperable by design.

This standardisation provides a common basis of comparison, which makes it much easier for developers and their customers to slot together and map systems directly. This in turn makes integrations much quicker, cheaper and easier compared to those for most existing systems.

Many developing regtech firms’ available cashflows are shorter than the average sales cycle of their financial services customers, such as banks. So for developers, interoperability removes the issue of not being able to afford integrations because they take so long and cost too much. This will also help small-scale developers get a foothold in the market and achieve scale.

Removing duplication

Multinationals are constantly trying to benchmark and contextualise rules in individual countries with regulation across the world. Interoperability helps developers to support them in this goal, as it makes information more accessible and provides a common basis for comparison.

They also want to turn regulatory content into a more manageable format. Previously, this formatting often involved much duplication of information. But RegGenome’s interoperability helps to avoid this duplication.

Collaboration and feedback

RegGenome is highly collaborative and vendors will benefit from helping to develop the content and functionality of the system. They can do this by, for example, creating connections between the RegGenome’s standard rule representation and the ways in which firms organise information.

RegGenome is building a network of application providers, regulators and financial firms that allows the commercial and regulatory worlds to provide feedback to each other without any sense of preferential treatment. This accelerates regulatory standardisation to improve the use and digestibility of content and provide more powerful capabilities.

RegGenome’s, and the RGP’s, links to regulators run deep. Both originated at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, which runs a pre-eminent regulatory innovation training course. Over the past few years, the University has trained 1,400 regulators and established strong relations with many regulatory bodies. 

What’s next?

We are looking for strategic technology partners to join this network of applications ‘Powered by RegGenome’ and help establish a de facto standard for organising the world’s financial regulatory information.

RegGenome will provide a developer platform that offers smooth access to its data for testing and integration purposes. With the benefit of early mapping to the RegGenome, the first cohort of developers to come on board will build a powerful first-mover advantage.

Above all, RegGenome is not in competition with regtechs or application providers – it frees them to do what they do best and focus on technology development rather than content. 

Help your firm accelerate its goals – get in touch today.