Repositioning RegTech

Why regulatory software has a future well beyond financial services

Search online for the term ‘RegTech’ (Regulatory Technology) and you’ll retrieve plenty of results – what it is, how it works, why it’s important and the companies that have embraced it. Likely, most of these will relate to the financial services sector.

This is no surprise – after all, RegTech’s ability to enhance regulation, compliance and enforcement processes is transforming the sector. But this technology can support domains much broader than financial services alone.

RegTech solutions are here to help tackle regulatory challenges for both regulators and industry, across any sector – and the future is exciting.

The RegTech opportunity

Speaking at a recent webinar hosted by the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade) and Innovate Finance, I delivered my thoughts on how regulatory technology is being applied across wider industries.

Acknowledging a comment from fellow panellist Hessel Verbeek (KPMG), I believe RegTech is the number one opportunity we see across the UK and Australian borders. In fact, when looking solely at the number of headquarters globally, the UK is the second largest RegTech hub on the planet and Australia is third. Combine the two and they are bigger than the US – a RegTech powerhouse. The opportunity speaks for itself.

Regulatory technology is very much on the agenda for both countries to transform the management of regulatory processes. So, where is Objective RegTech looking to next?

Specialist software for global governments

The regulated universe and the various domains within it have great linkages across the world, but these connections are incredibly clear between the UK and Australia. Fellow speakers at the Austrade webinar noted the process and cultural similarities between these two countries and, speaking to customers in both, we’ve heard first-hand how the principles, processes and challenges of regulation in one translate extremely well to the other.

That’s why we’re bringing specific domain expertise and examples of where we serve the Australian and New Zealand governments to the UK, where we have an established operation.

Our vision is to deliver strong outcomes as the end-to-end regulatory government specialist that we are. With examples ranging from the development of a solution to tackle pests and diseases on incoming cargo containers and providing a flexible SaaS solution for managing livestock owner and beekeeper registrations, to partnering to deliver digital transformation and build stronger communities and helping enforce regulation of new anti-wage theft legislation, we’re here to highlight and share the successes of government regulators.

We’re also working with various partners – such as the Institute of Regulation and National Regulators Community of Practice – to facilitate conversations between regulatory practitioners to share knowledge and learnings from across the industry. This will see us extend an industry survey to central government regulators across the UK later this year to better understand experiences and thoughts of improving regulatory practice through technology.


Raising the RegTech profile

The regulatory environment is sophisticated and the technology that supports it is rapidly evolving. Promoting the capabilities and opportunities of RegTech, alongside increased transparency of its success across different government domains, can only result in positive outcomes – growth, stronger communities, outstanding customer service, and enhanced user experiences to name a few.

As our portfolio grows, we look forward to pushing awareness of the power of RegTech within government. Watch this space for the exciting announcements to come!