RegTech allows companies to better manage regulatory compliance, but it is also a valuable tool to create added value and innovatively grow the business. But for this to be possible, companies need to implement specific technologies, which are the basic conditions for developing a good RegTech system, such as blockchain, AI, and RPA. When building a business and imagining strategies and ways to grow, one cannot help but take into account the regulations and operational and procedural requirements established by the legislature for a given industry, including when it comes to RegTech and regulations. Often, regulation is considered as an element that hinders or slows down the development of the business. In other words, one often perceives the conflict, the opposition between regulation and the development and growth of an entrepreneurial project.

The company is committed to providing best-in-class RCM processes for compliance officers, risk officers, counsel, and regulators alike. This includes an expansion into G-20 regulatory coverage, enhanced workflows, advanced reporting, and expanding its partnerships with the industry's leading GRC's to facilitate accessibility. "Our platform is growing quickly, both in terms of the capabilities we offer, and our client base of compliance and risk professionals," said Kayvan Alikhani, CEO and co-founder of Compliance.ai. "The Series-A funding will accelerate expansion into international jurisdictions and expedite our mission of transforming compliance processes." Compliance.ai helps compliance professionals navigate the mounting and complex regulations.

Its effects are already being felt in financial services, with the advent of robo-advisers in wealth management, online-only banks and peer-to-peer funding. This technological disruption is also blurring lines across sectors and industries, a development that is especially relevant to financial services. The use of common technologies and platforms is bringing global industries closer together and changing the competitive landscape.The new players include fintech and insurtech companies as well as disruptors in other industries. In Asia, for example, Tesla has partnered with established insurers to offer a vehicle package featuring customised motor insurance that accounts for its vehicles' autopilot safety features as well as maintenance costs. As it moves toward fully autonomous vehicles, Tesla is in a unique position to compete with property and casualty insurers in cases where traditional insurers are not willing to lower the risk premium1.

Regulatory and compliance issues are some of the most important, complex and resource-consuming problems to solve for any organization, especially for startups with limited resources. Over decades of development, regulatory requirements and documentation have grown into a matter of special expertise and skills to decode. Globally, $80 billion is spent on governance, risk and compliance, and the market is only expected to grow, reaching $120 billion in the next five years . According to ANZ, National Australia Bank has estimated that the cost of regulatory compliance has risen from $A86 million annually in 2012 to $A177 million in 2013 and $A265 million in 2014. Westpac was reported to spending $A300 million on compliance last year.

Regtech startups are saving firms billions in regulatory fines and displacing manual risk and compliance with cutting-edge technology. Over 143 million Americans will be at risk of financial fraud for years following the Equifax cybersecurity breach, while an estimated 3 million Wells Fargo customers unknowingly had their digital identity stolen to open fraudulent trading accounts. It's been nearly a decade since the financial crisis exposed how a weak risk management framework and lack of governance can almost permanently debilitate even one of the strongest capital markets. Yet despite a massive regulatory overhaul following the crisis, recent incidents show just how vulnerable the industry still is when it comes to hackers, fraud, and mismanagement. Looking at the top breaches since the financial crisis highlights some of the impacts that major gaps in regulation have on consumers.

Regulatory compliance has always been and will always be one of the top priorities and concerns of every financial institution (FI). Regulatory reforms following the global financial crisis of 2008 compelled FIs to make substantial investments in risk and compliance – both in terms of technology and headcount – to prevent and remediate regulatory issues. Despite their best efforts, FIs often find themselves falling short of regulatory obligations owing to highly manual processes and silo-based solutions which hinder transparency, efficiency and availability of fast and meaningful data. Non-compliance means being slapped with hefty penalties not to mention consequent reputational damage. Compliance processes today need to be backed up like never before by automation, artificial intelligence and big data – to name a few crucial technologies – to keep up with increasing regulation and stricter enforcement.

Beware: Siri, Alexa and Watson will soon be watching you. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, biometrics and blockchain are just the first seeds of a revolution that will take us into an era of robo-regulators and smart regulation. Sanne Wass reports on a future that is closer than we think. She's nothing like an ordinary compliance officer; even the smartest Oxford graduate would not stand a chance against her. She knows 70 languages, and it takes her just a few minutes to investigate thousands of websites, documents, reports and legal records.

RegTech has definitely become one of the areas to watch in 2017 and this trend is likely to continue in the years to come. Here are eight things you need to know. RegTech, short for regulatory technology, is the use of new technologies to address compliance and regulatory challenges not only more efficiently but also more effectively. There are now numerous RegTech startups globally looking at tackling pain points, from know-your-client (KYC) and onboarding to compliance monitoring and fraud detection, using some of the latest technologies, from big data analytics to artificial intelligence. Since the global financial crisis, banks across Asia and globally have dealt with the numerous new regulations by hiring thousands of compliance officers, thus solving an important problem by adding costly headcount.

The emerging regulatory technology or regtech market, driven by artificial intelligence, is helping to reduce fraud in the financial services sector, but how is the so-called future of compliance computing progressing? There can, it seems, be little doubt that big financial institutions are throwing what Mr Sulistyo calls "an insane amount of people" at the regulatory compliance problem. "An informed estimate for financial institutions is now around 10 to 15 per cent of total workforce dedicated to governance, risk management and compliance," he says. Unsurprisingly, he adds that the best risk professionals are in such high demand they are "as rare as unicorns and more expensive than their weight in gold". Mr Sulistyo says if you talk to London bankers, they are already hailing AI-driven regtech as a kind of magic silver bullet and saviour of the financial industry.