If tomorrow you woke up and somehow you had become a “global financial regulator” with all the power, what is the first thing you would do, and why?
This is the question we ask all our guests at the end of their interview on the RegTalks podcast.
During each episode, Know Your Customer’s CEO & Co-Founder Claus Christensen sits down with an industry expert to discuss their unique take on the latest trends shaping the world of AML and KYC compliance in financial services.
From a unified set of rules around KYC and AML to an integrated supervisory strategy and information sharing across industry players, here is an overview of the answers we have received so far…
Episode #24: Janos Barberis, CFTE + Founders Taboo
“At Founders Taboo we do generally believe that founders’ mental health should be embedded in corporate governance. If it’s not, it will destroy founders, shareholder value, teams and users. […] Reporting to your board that you are actually doing something about your wellness should be a standard, just like ESG is a standard. You don’t need to say what you have because that’s private, but you should be telling your board what you’re doing to take care of yourself. “
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #21: Evgeny Likhoded, Clausematch
“I would immediately digitise all of the regulations and provide a single source for accessing all of them. That would have a huge impact on how much easier compliance would be across the world… That would be my very first step.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #19: Oonagh van den Berg, VRS & Raw Compliance
“Digitalization and automation are great, but it starts with training. So I would start with training. I would start with education. Once people around you understand and have awareness of the risks, they can help support you in developing the controls and the regulatory framework to govern that.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #17: Sujata Dasgupta, Tata Consultancy Services
“What we see now is that regulators are already doing so much.[…] But then, if I were a global regulator myself, I would probably try to get the local regulators together so that we all agree on the common standards, and define common interpretations of each of these recommendations so that we can have them implemented accordingly.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #16: Dr Sian Lewin, RegTech Associates
“I would make sure that all of my rules were produced in a standardised format that could at least be machine-readable. That would cut out a huge amount of interpretation and manual processes, particularly around managing regulatory change. Everything would be standardised so it would be much easier to consume. “
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #15: Nicholas Pratt, Funds Europe
“First thing I would do is try and address the chasm-like pay gap between regulators and the people they regulate. […] The second thing I would do is encourage asset managers and banks just to get on with it. […] I would like to see less money spent on lobbying and more money spent on technology or systems. The third thing would be to encourage a more radical regulatory agenda following a crisis. In the last 20 years we’ve seen so many ‘once in a hundred years’ events; you’d think this is the perfect opportunity to introduce radical changes whilst it’s still fresh in everybody’s memory that whatever system we have at the moment clearly doesn’t work.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #14: Ciaran Askin, Invesco
“The first thing I’d tackle would be consistency of regulation, certainly in the AML space. FATF is trying to get us all to come to a single type of regulation, but even within the EU, where we have directives, there’s so much variance of different interpretations. […] Putting my law enforcement hat on as well, where you’ve got differences, you then have vulnerabilities; the criminals are good at knowing where those differences are and they will target the weakest points. And once they have got that weakest point, they are into the system and it’s too late.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #13: Ankush Samant, Standard Chartered Bank
“Based on my observations, I think a lot of financial regulators are also coming up with their own innovation teams […]. If I somehow woke up and became part of this global regulator, I’d take a few more steps in this direction. […] I think it’s high time regulators create their own customer forums where they call in customers, listen to them and then see what they need to introduce as regulations.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #12: Alessia Benevelli, WSBI-ESBG
“There is no one single thing that would solve everything. There are always unintended consequences that could have even a bigger impact than the measure itself. Still, if I had to choose something that is currently missing, I would say I would probably regulate crypto assets and improve the supervision of all listed companies. “
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #11: David Rosa, Neat
“I think it would have to be aligning the different regulators within a particular jurisdiction. Typically what you have is an amalgam of regulators, and guess what? They’re not all aligned on standards. […] Let’s make sure that then the standards are aligned. That’s what I would get on a mission on if I were to be a super-regulator.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #10: Morgan Terigi, Incomlend
“I think an increased exchange of information between financiers could avoid quite a lot of the issues that we’ve seen. If banks had been communicating or able to exchange information in a discreet manner without breaching confidentiality and privacy clauses, that would have enabled them to prevent certain issues.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #9: Victor Yim, TransUnion
“I think I would be enforcing regulation to create an information sharing framework across different jurisdictions, industries, companies, domains to improve the effectiveness of combating financial crimes.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #8: Brian Tang, Fintech Association of Hong Kong (RegTech)
“I would try to ensure that all financial institutions, regulated entities and regulatory staff are really trained in technology and professionalism. In my view this links to what is the role of finance in society and therefore helps the people that work in finance ensure that what they do continues to serve the people that their services were created to serve.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #7: Marius Galdikas, ConnectPay
“I would rethink the setup by consolidating fighting financial crime into properly staffed, properly set-up governmental or regulatory organisations that would see a holistic picture of the entire industry across markets, across different players and would be able to do the things that the financial institutions are doing right now much more efficiently.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #6: Malcolm Wright, 100x Group
“I would focus on harmonising regulations. That would be my first thing, because it would solve a lot of problems. It makes the cost of compliance cheaper, and it’s more effective than having a system that is fundamentally different everywhere you go. And it avoids regulatory arbitrage, making it harder for the bad actors to penetrate the system if there are no weakest links.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #5: Julian Dixon, Napier
“It would be great if a global regulator had some kind of tax on systems that are older, less efficient. Therefore the banks would be incentivised to keep their technology in pace with the global technology trends, but, even more importantly, with money launderers. Because the money launderers have no budgets, limitations to talent nor rules, and unless good guys use advanced technology too, fighting criminals becomes an ever more difficult war that we’re in.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #4: Andrew Cheng, Tradelink
“To combat digital fraud, we should really work together as a team. There should be mechanisms to share information more. Some of the bad guys are opening multiple accounts at different banks. If the banks, for example, could share such information among themselves or through the regulators, I think this would help us make a really robust and better solution for everybody and reduce the risk dramatically.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #3: Medhy Souidi, DBS
“I would create a team of developers and hire a really good CTO to push for more digital innovation from all parts, open some databases to the companies, banks and startups, and push for a lot of changes around open data and federated data. Open data is just the first step, but what is really interesting for me is federated data.”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #2: Musheer Ahmed, FinStep Asia
“The first thing I would do is to create a regulatory framework for digital ecosystems end-to-end, not as an evolution of existing regulations, but from scratch. And why is because you do need to radically change how you build regulations. Keeping big tech in mind, how would you build your financial services regulations?”
Listen to the full episode here.
Episode #1: Karen Contet, AngelHub & WHub
“I would make regulations so much clearer for everybody, use language that everyone can actually read and understand. And the second thing would be to make a common regulation across all jurisdictions and digitalise the whole process, in terms of reporting, onboarding and communication.”
Listen to the full episode here.
We will keep updating this list as new episodes of RegTalks are released.
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Last updated on May 2nd, 2024 at 02:53 am
