Agile compliance is the focus of a new podcast and Expert Talk series exploring technology and integrated risk management. Our experts will address five common challenges and show how our #ConnectedRisk platform is delivering a holistic view of risk.
- A five-part series of podcasts with accompanying Expert Talks from Refinitiv and Radical Compliance will explore technology and integrated risk management.
- The series examines five challenges on the path to agile compliance, including regulatory change management and overcoming fragmented frameworks.
- Our #ConnectedRisk platform delivers a holistic view of risk by connecting internal and external information from disparate data sources into one customisable dashboard.
Corporate compliance and risk officers work under tremendous pressure — not necessarily to do more with less, but to do better with what the compliance function has, amid increasingly complex regulatory and business environments.
Clearly technology is the answer to that call, but the astute use of compliance technology remains challenging.
How can risk and compliance officers understand the operational and regulatory dynamics they face, and design a technology system fit for modern risk management purposes?
To answer that question, Refinitiv and Radical Compliance are launching a new series, entitled: “Can compliance achieve integrated risk management with modern technology ecosystems?”
The series will feature five Expert Talks diving deeply into the issues facing compliance officers at large financial firms. Each one will be accompanied by a podcast on the same topic, featuring subject matter experts at Refinitiv being interviewed by Matt Kelly of Radical Compliance.
Five compliance challenges
Exactly what issues will we explore? The line-up is as follows:
Addressing regulatory change: In our first episode, we look at the rapid pace of regulatory change, and the challenge this poses for risk management and compliance functions — especially for businesses working in a highly fragmented IT or operational environment, which is typically the environment large financial firms find themselves in.
Overcoming fragmented frameworks: In our second episode, we address the use of frameworks to manage compliance. This includes the possibility of “framework overload,” where different parts of the enterprise use too many frameworks in a disjointed fashion, leaving senior executives with an imprecise understanding of all the risk management activity that is (or is not) happening across the firm.
Clarifying compliance roles and responsibilities: Financial firms continue to navigate through mergers and acquisitions, and restructurings to cut costs or to keep pace with nimble, digital-only competitors, and more.
In this episode, we will discuss how compliance officers can manage roles and responsibilities for risk management in a fluid environment, and assess some of the more challenging relationships compliance might have with first line of defense executives, internal audit, and others.
Governing risk models: Financial firms need strong governance over risk models so that the compliance function can maintain a current and correct view of risk across the entire firm. This episode explores how to develop governance rules for risk models, how to connect those rules to shifting external risk environments, and what technology capabilities are critical to keeping model governance effective.
Defining ROI and KRIs: Our last episode addresses what is arguably the most important point for compliance officers: how to identify and prove the benefits that come from better governance, risk and compliance technology.
Chief financial officers want practical arguments focusing on the bottom line, and boards want evidence of better insights and decision-making. Compliance officers also need to select the right risk indicators, which ultimately inform whether or not the firm’s risk posture is improving.
Connected Risk platform
The origins of this project trace back to a Celent report commissioned by Refinitiv in 2018 that identified several pressures affecting financial firms:
- Regulatory change, as regulators around the world constantly revise an already large and complex set of rules for firms to follow.
- Organizational change, as firms acquire each other or restructure, seeking competitive advantage.
- Technology change, as firms implement new technologies either to offer new services, improve internal operations, or stay competitive with rivals.
- Reputation change, as consumers and business partners’ shifting ethical standards pressure firms to be better corporate citizens — or risk fierce, sudden backlash for misconduct.
These, among many other factors, are why organizations need a modern GRC technology architecture; one that can handle the demands and speed at which today’s advanced businesses move and that the regulatory landscape necessitates.
These focuses are at the core of Connected Risk, our best-of-breed governance and compliance software platform.
This platform makes it possible for you to absorb ever-increasing volumes of data with standardized, tailorable process automation — all achieved through the deployment of interoperable, connected solutions.
Watch: Introducing Compliance Management, Connected Risk
Technology and agile compliance
The challenge for firms is to build a compliance function that lets them keep pace with these fast-moving forces.
A compliance officer can’t achieve that goal without better use of technology, but the risk of embracing technology the wrong way — resulting in squandered budgets, unfulfilled regulatory duties, and tarnished reputations — is painfully high.
Instead, compliance officers need to harness technology that builds a resilient, agile compliance program: one that can monitor and manage risk successfully, while keeping changes to business procedure or IT infrastructure to a minimum.
And compliance officers need to do all this while laboring under new regulations or being held to account under the unblinking eye of social media — meaning the urgency of getting this right is much higher.
This series will help compliance officers untangle that knot.