• Gordon McHarg, MD at Autorek


• 06.07.2020 04:02 pm

Financial IT: Please describe AutoRek.

GM: AutoRek is a leading provider of automated financial control and data management software. Our clients span the asset management, banking and insurance sectors and include high street banks, payment platforms, start-ups and crowdfunding businesses.

The majority of our customers are high transaction volume businesses with often complex data management requirements.

Our software is a configurable rules driven platform which can be applied to diverse business scenarios including mortgage payments, Insurance premiums, ATM cash management, internal financial controls and various regulatory reporting requirements such as MIFID II and CASS (client asset protection).

Financial IT: In very general terms, what are the geographical markets that are most important to you? In relation to the businesses that are your customers, what are the most important industry verticals?

GM: The majority of our customers are UK Financial Services organisations. We have a number of US and global organisations as clients and a strategic objective to grow our business in the US market.

Financial IT: How important is data management and compliance for banking sector? How does AutoRek help banks and financial institutions to solve reconciliation problems?

GM: Data volumes are growing at almost exponential rates and regulatory demands continue to create significant strain on the industry. At the same time, market disruption from new Fintech start-ups and large multinational tech platforms like Apple and Google leave the more established financial services organisations needing to accelerate innovation. Meanwhile, the new entrants reduce the costs of operations.

The availability, quality and integrity of data within a financial services company is critical to its success. Whether it is understanding the business performance of a new product line, delivering quality services to clients or complying with regulation, a key requirement is almost always about getting data right.

AutoRek helps banks and financial institutions automate the data management process verifying the integrity and completeness of their data and processes. Automated business rules combined with workflow and escalation help our clients manage the quality of their data and mitigate the risk of inaccurate financial and regulatory reporting.

Financial IT: Please give some examples of the landmark deals signed by AutoRek recently.

GM: At the start of 2020 we were delighted to bring in two landmark deals with both Nationwide and Bank of England. These are two great names to add to our growing client list and we are excited to begin working with them.

In 2019 AutoRek also established a strategic partnership with Cforia Software Inc, a US-based enterprise solutions provider delivering end-to-end global order-to-cash automation. CForia have embedded the AutoRek product into their order to cash platform supporting automation of payment allocation and cash reconciliations. Our partnership is still at an early stage. Nevertheless,  having added three  new global clients in the last six months it is looking very promising.

Financial IT: In your opinion, how has Covid 19 impacted the RegTech and financial industries? 

GM: COVID19 has clearly created significant operational challenges for many financial services businesses. The FCA have been clear that they still expect organisation to comply with their regulatory obligations despite the operational challenges of remote working. Many firms have struggled with the changeover to working from home with the first priority to minimise the impact on business as usual processes such as such as daily and month end financial control and reporting requirements.

Financial IT: Looking forward one year, what are the main changes that you expect to take place in the RegTech space? 

GM: It is generally accepted that the COVID19 pandemic will change the future of work. I think this is especially true in the financial services sector: after some initial challenges, most companies are now largely operational and have adapted to cope with the impact of remote working. Organisations have now proven that the business can remain fully operational without the need for teams to be located in company offices.

Going forward, increased operational resilience will be the priority: this means ensuring that remote teams responsible for business-critical decisions and processes have access to the tools and data required to maintain compliance.

In recent years we have seen a significant shift to cloud-based solutions, and I expect this will further accelerate as a result of Covid 19.

Empowering key decision makers, finance functions, compliance or customer management teams require tools which are easy to use and support non-technical users in collating, reconciling, aggregating and analysing increasingly large and complex data. Recent developments in robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies present significant opportunity to reduce the complexity, automate manual processes, reduce the cost of compliance and accelerate decision making for our customers.