On 29 June 2021, the EBA released a new report (EBA Analysis of RegTech in the EU Financial Sector) presenting its analysis of the RegTech in the financial sector. The report presents a number of conclusions that include the need to address knowledge gaps on RegTech amongst regulators, support the harmonization of supervisory treatment and regulations relating to RegTech, and continued encouragement of regulatory sandboxes.
The report has good news for RegTech providers with satisfaction levels for solutions high and IT spend by FIs on the rise for their solutions (increasing at 75% of respondents, remaining stable with 19%, and decreasing at only 6% of respondents).
Presenting results from the perspective of both financial institutions (FIs) and also RegTech providers, the report highlights differences in experiences. It is these differences that are the most interesting and lead to the following observations.
1. RegTechs need to be more sophisticated with product messaging
It is clear from the report that FI requirements and expectation for RegTech has matured. They want to see technology benefits from enhanced risk management, better monitoring and sampling capabilities, and reduced human error. This contrasts with dated messaging from RegTech providers that quote benefits as efficiency and effectiveness and responding to regulatory change.
2. RegTechs need to align offerings to market need
The report highlights the misalignment between where FIs are using RegTech solutions, where they have experience of those solutions, and the proportion of offerings from providers. This shows that AML/ CFT, ICT Security, and Credit Worthiness Assessment are underserved and could present opportunities for RegTech providers.
The large classification of many RegTech providers in the “Other” category (and based on a review of the listing of these categories from the report annex) suggests the need for better market alignment by them. This is especially true as RegTech providers highlight the lack of FI understanding of RegTech solutions as a barrier to entry.
Every RegTech provider will claim the uniqueness of their solutions, but if these solutions don’t meet the expectations of the market place they will be difficult to position and sell and highly unlikely to be successful.
3. Greatest competitor for RegTechs may be internal builds
The overall satisfaction levels for RegTech solutions are high but FIs only just prefer external RegTech solutions (75% overall satisfaction) to those built in-house (70%).
Good news for RegTech based cloud offerings, as Software‐as‐a‐Service (SaaS) solutions had the highest satisfaction level of 83%.
4. Regulation is not the real barrier for RegTechs
90% of RegTech providers consider that the lack of regulatory/supervisory guidance and support as an obstacle to their solutions across different countries. This same view is not held by FIs.
5. RegTechs need to be realistic on deployment times
The report highlights a discrepancy between deployment time expectations. 66% of RegTechs claim deployment times of less than 3 months but the report suggests a 12-18 month deployment cycle is experienced for the majority of solutions by FIs. Although such extended project periods may be due to a lack of technical readiness on behalf of the FIs, RegTech providers should do a better job of setting expectations.
If you’ve found this analysis interesting. Please reach out and I would be very happy to discuss the state of the RegTech market with you.
