Risk and Compliance Blog

Using Technology to Transform Compliance

Written by Lisa Deschamp | Sep 1, 2020 9:30:00 AM

Financial institutions never faced as many challenges as during Covid-19. In order to face heightened risk and compliance challenges many firms had to recognize that innovative solutions are essential in all areas of the business.

Regulatory Pressure

In light of the uncertainty of the global crisis, compliance is currently managing several demands from regulators that are requiring more transparency, meaning an increasing amount of data and information needs to be captured to improve oversight of risks and behaviour among employees.

Now that employees are working from home and conduct risks are higher, compliance leaders have given technology a more important status, especially because the current regulatory landscape increased the amount of work in compliance departments. There are more reporting and compliance obligations than ever before; activities that technology can and should facilitate.

More than ever, technology that works is essential and organizations that do not have compliance technology to monitor employees conduct activities are seeing the need to implement it fast due to regulatory pressures. Organizations need the right tools and resources to address regulatory challenges and to embrace solutions that can adapt to provide the necessary insights for compliance, risk management, conflicts of interest checks and transaction monitoring. A solution that fits an organization will provide smarter decision making for compliance leaders, both now and in the future.

The management of regulatory risks are an essential part of financial firms, furthermore technology will help firms to drive compliance more efficiently while seeking greater innovative solutions to enhance compliance.

The current situation calls for solutions

We are in the middle of a crisis and deficient compliance monitoring has been identified and alerted by regulators since the beginning of Covid-19. Across the world, several financial institutions are being subject to heavy fines and penalties for failing to comply with the regulations.

According to a recent report from Irish Fintech company Fenergo, $36 billion has been issued in financial institutions fines globally since 2008. In 2020, fines issued to banks for non-compliance have reached $5.6 billion and according to the report it could surpass, the 2019 total amount of $ 8.4billion.

“Although regulatory and supervisory activity may have been impacted by Covid-19, global regulators have reinforced the importance of vigilance and reporting of suspicious activity to ensure the detection and prevention of financial crime throughout the pandemic,” said Rachel Wooley, global director of financial crime at Fenergo.

The use of technology to assist compliance is essential in today’s complex regulatory environment. New and enhanced solutions enable compliance to oversee employees’ activities and improve the operational process through better analysis.

In the current circumstances, it is more important than ever to address compliance with efficiency and use the power of compliance technology and the automation of tasks to minimise compliance risks.

MyComplianceOffice provides easy-to-use, SaaS-based compliance management software that enables companies around the world to reduce their risk of misconduct. Our powerful platform lets compliance professionals demonstrate that they are proactively managing the regulated activities of the company, employees and third-party vendors.  

 

Want to learn more about how we can help? Let us know and we’ll set up some time to talk.