WIN: Worldwide Innovation Need

The ‘peak’ season of international events around digital data standards and SupTech & RegTech innovations is in full swing – 31^st XBRL Europe Conference in Rome (Italy), Regtech Africa Conference 2023 in Lagos, ISO TC 68 Annual Meeting on Standardization in the field of banking, securities and other financial services this year held in Sydney are most recent examples from different regions. We collected a few highlights regarding the standards and digitisation strategies that we work with on a daily basis in our projects around the world.

Digital data exchange opens the way for innovating data collection, assuring quality, and maximizing the analytical potential of data. The latest developments of the XBRL standard are shared by the community bringing clarity about the practical benefits of XBRL and iXBRL and the upcoming OIM-CSV (Open Information Model – Comma-Separated Values). Each year XBRL Europe provides a collaborative platform for building a productive dialogue between public, and private sectors incumbents and tech experts around the regulatory data and business reporting systems’ innovation that brings not only optimisations in the data processing but actual positive change in data comparability and transparency for increasingly data-driven economies. Conscious of the current data needs and regulatory initiatives in Europe and other jurisdictions around the world, this year XBRL Europe also urges a digital approach to sustainability disclosures focusing on the upcoming implementation of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) via the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive).

In case you missed out on this event, catch up on the key takeaways by watching recordings of sessions, and copies of presentations available here.

Innovations in regulatory technologies were discussed last week at another forum, in Lagos, Nigeria, during the   that brought together 1,000+ regulators, innovators, and thought leaders from African countries, including Nigeria, Zambia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, and beyond. In our conversations we discussed there how regulators can successfully take the lead in innovation in their jurisdictions, not just compete, or keep pace with Big Tech but indeed show directions experiment, and successfully adopt innovative tech most fit for the strategies and needs in a given jurisdiction.  The bar has been raised higher than ever – the increasingly interconnected and tech-driven world needs innovation to be grounded in purpose and support the stability and trust of the economy. It is clear that random applications of emerging technologies will not make good on that need, and only strategic persistence pays off. The speakers and participants of RegTech Africa highlighted how RegTech grounded in well-defined strategies helps to achieve the objectives of financial inclusion and consumer protection.

Regulators have the remits, the collaboration platforms on national and international levels, and ultimately the data that is a prerequisite for purpose-driven innovation. They are well positioned to provide the consumers and the markets with stability and trust coming from their supervisory remits as well as actionable insights based on the data they collect from regulated industries.

They are well-positioned to WIN big while implementing their Master Plans, Digitisation, and Financial Inclusion Strategies. They experiment in regulatory sandboxes and engage with the professional community in tech sprints and other Proofs of Concept.

Regardless of the region, the notion of building a fair, digital, inclusive economy is consistently emphasized. This key message, among others, resonated with our commitment the most. Being a trusted tech partner for regulatory and supervisory authorities on their transition toward ‘data-driven’ digital economies, we provide them with dedicated technologies and spur critical innovations in the areas that address common regulatory “pain points” and challenges, like growing volumes of data collected from regulated industries with more market participants and changing industry practices to supervise, environmental, social, and governance (ESG)/Sustainability disclosures entering the supervisory datasets along financial data, cross-border payments and modernisations of payments systems, standardising data and regulating new areas such as crypto assets, aligning with international guidelines such as ones by International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Bank for International Settlements (BIS).