The regulator says it receives over 500,000 scheduled regulatory reports from firms, as well as additional ad hoc reports annually, and describes the collective demand on firms reporting regulatory data to the FCA as ‘significant’.

In November 2017 the FCA and the Bank of England held a two-week ‘tech sprint’ to examine how technology can make the current system of regulatory reporting more accurate, efficient and consistent. Participants, who included financial services companies and technology suppliers, successfully developed a ‘proof of concept’ which could make regulatory reporting requirements machine-readable and executable.

This means that firms could map the reporting requirements directly to the data that they hold, creating the potential for automated, straight-through processing of regulatory returns, which would improve data accuracy, reduce costs and make it easier to implement changes to regulatory requirements.

Now the FCA has published a call for input which outlines the proof of concept and asks for view on how the process could be improved, plus feedback on some of the broader issues surrounding the role technology can play in regulatory reporting.

Christopher Woolard, FCA’s executive director of strategy and competition said: ‘Technology is a powerful shaper of financial regulation, able to make compliance simpler and more efficient. Our TechSprints bring people from across the financial services world together to share their collective knowledge to solve common problems. We look forward to working with industry participants in the coming months to drive these ideas forward.’

The call for input closes 20 June. The FCA says it will publish a feedback statement summarising the views received and the proposed next steps in summer 2018.

Call for Input: Using technology to achieve smarter regulatory reporting is here.

Report by Pat Sweet