Originally published in ABA Banking Journal.
Is your financial institution keeping up with the rapid pace of regulatory change? If your compliance team is still spending hours scanning webpages and email alerts to track, analyze, and map regulatory updates into Excel spreadsheets, the answer is likely “no.”
For most institutions, manually monitoring regulatory change is no longer an option, and the search for an automation partner must be considered. The risk of being caught off-guard by an important regulatory update is too great. In addition, imagine all the time and resources spent managing manual processes that could be put toward more value-added activities. But even an industry so used to change can find technology implementations intimidating.
While several vendors in the marketplace offer regulatory change content, all providers are not created equal. It might be helpful to consider an RFP process within your organization to ask stakeholders what they want in an automated process. From there, you’ll have a clearer picture of what your needs are and can begin searching for the right vendor.
Some other things to consider when selecting a regulatory change content vendor:
- Depth and breadth of regulatory coverage. Look for a vendor that has most or all of the content you need and doesn’t require a lengthy “roadmap.” Ensure that your content library is updated in real-time as regulatory changes occur, not periodically.
- Only subscribe to what you need. You shouldn’t have to subscribe to content that you don’t need or “bundles.” Only pay for what you will use.
- Content is screened and monitored before it reaches you. Your regulatory change content vendor should have the ability to “tame the fire hose” and only provide you with regulatory updates that are relevant to your business or industry.
- Control over configuration. Financial institutions should have the ability to configure which release types they want to push into their workflow. For example, you would likely add rule filing releases to the workflow, but maybe not speeches, depending on what is relevant to your organization.
- Dynamic links. Regulatory change updates should be dynamically linked to the areas of your regulatory library that it amends, repeals, cites, or references to provide the user with a holistic view of the update’s potential impact.
- Tagged libraries and structured updates. Regulatory content libraries should be tagged and updates structured for ease of use, reporting, and assignment.
- Artificial intelligence is supported by human expertise. While artificial intelligence, natural language processing, robotic process automation, and machine learning are invaluable automation tools to help gather, process, and structure content, it should be augmented through a human expert validation process to catch any subtleties that can escape machines.
As we continue to work remotely, having a central place to manage the regulatory change process is a game changer. Automation keeps everyone on the same page regarding regulatory changes coming through the pipeline, which ones apply to your financial institution, and how material the change is. Selecting the right regulatory change content provider is an essential first step in your automation journey.
