In the latest episode of the RegTech 20:20 podcast from Encompass, the Know Your Customer (KYC) RegTech software provider, guest speaker Francesca Hopwood Road, Head of RegTech and Advanced Analytics at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is interviewed about how the regulator is working with those within the industry. 

This episode also focuses on the link between RegTech and SupTech [Supervisory Technology], with Francesca providing expert insight into how SupTech has evolved.

During the discussion, she makes reference to TechSprint, events that bring people together to focus on problem statements like financial crime and regulation. Reflecting on their purpose and form, she states that “earlier this year, we published a report evaluating the lessons we have learned from hosting numerous TechSprints, which has been a growing way of bringing experts together to crack pain points that we are all experiencing”. 

Francesca breaks down the data strategy and highlights the work of the FCA and how it strives to be data enabled and data led. She notes that “there is a lot of work that continues around really understanding what activity is alive within the wider RegTech ecosystem”, which allows the FCA to discover new areas of work.

In this podcast, Francesca acknowledges that “in the early days, the capabilities and techniques that the FCA wanted to test, like network analytics, were observed in the RegTech portfolio, so, since that time, the work programme around  SupTech has really developed”. This has helped them harness their ability regarding efficiency and automation as an organisation. 

In addition, she goes on to speak about the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects  it is having across the wider community and market. The FCA conducted research, reaching out to networks to understand the emerging insights and Francesca continued “we wanted to know what the negative and positive impact was on the RegTech ecosystem, working out what our role as a regulator might be”. Touching on the long-term impact, she told how the crisis could provide an opportunity for firms in how they navigate their way through it in a way that puts technology at the forefront. .

When asked about the future of the RegTech sector, Francesca notes that “internationally, there is a huge opportunity” and hopes that the market seizes these opportunities.

If you would like to listen to this month’s episode of RegTech 20:20 in full, visit https://www.encompasscorporation.com/regtech2020-podcast/  You can also find this episode, and the rest of the series, on all major platforms such as Apple, Spotify and Google.