Wolters Kluwer is holding its annual EMEA Client Conference for Financial Services in Vienna this week. The event, which starts tomorrow, brings together the firm’s valued clients from across the region, allowing them to discuss finance, risk and regulatory reporting trends and challenges. Notably, the conference also allows clients to influence and drive Wolters Kluwer’s product strategy.

The event will kick off with a welcome address by Clive Pedder, global executive vice president and general manager for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business. This will be followed by a keynote by Gerd Leonhard, futurist and Think Tank leader from The Futures Agency, who will provide his insights about the impact of technological and cultural changes on the financial industry and how the sector might reinvent itself to stay competitive.

Kris Van Bavel, managing director EMEA, will then examine RegTech - an amalgamation of regulation and technology – including how certain regulators are now creating tailored RegTech projects. Other topics up for dicussion from Wolters Kluwer experts include sessions on IFRS 9 and the requirement for collaborative thinking, as well as the exploration of Business Intelligence technology for dynamic analyses and ways to leverage regulatory data to accelerate business decisions across the enterprise.

Clients, from the likes of Gazprombank, Scotiabank, BNY Mellon, SMBC and Santander, will provide fresh perspectives on experiences and business benefits gained from utilizing Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX  solutions. There will also be interactive sessions around the roadmap and product development, as well as opportunities for one-to-one meetings with product team and subject matter experts from Wolters Kluwer.

Guest speakers include Günther Sedlacek, senior advisor for Oesterreichische Nationalbank (The Austrian National Bank), who will provide his thoughts on the latest Austrian regulatory developments alongside Wolfgang Sützl, banking regulation and supervision specialist, from The Austrian Banking Association. Chris Skinner, an independent commentator on the financial markets famed for his blog (theFinanser.com), will also host a “fireside chat” exploring technology changes and the evolution of financial markets.

Closing this year’s EMEA Client Conference, Anthony Thomson, co-founder and former Chairman of Metro Bank and founder and Chairman of Atom Bank, will examine challenges facing  “challenger banks” from across EMEA, drawing upon his own experience with two examples in the U.K.

“Amid a backdrop of emerging new entrants into the market and unrelenting regulatory pressure financial institutions are all too aware that ‘business as usual’ within fragmented organizational structures is no longer an option,” notes Inga Rottmann, global vice president of Marketing for Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting business. “It is crucial now more than ever that firms adapt by adopting best practice approaches to the management of regulatory compliance and reporting. We look forward to exploring these and other themes with our clients at the event.”