The impact of technology on compliance program maturity

With newsworthy financial services regulations such as the Department of Labor (DOL) guidelines and Regulation Best Interest (RegBI), RegTech has recently come to the forefront. The reality is that technology has been rapidly evolving for some time to provide compliance professionals with the ability to leverage solutions designed to accelerate their programs. Yet, frustratingly, not all programs have taken full advantage of the technology available to them. While the hurdles to adoption may vary from organization to organization, the impact of not fully utilizing the technology available to an organization are profound.

NAVEX, a consultancy that has specialized in assessing the intersection of technology and compliance, recently took a closer look at this matter in their 2020 Definitive Risk & Compliance Benchmark Report. The report delivers a number of important insights focused on the maturity of a compliance program by measuring how sophisticated, entrenched, and embedded a program is inside its organization. I’ve summarized highlights below:

The technology spend for organizations surveyed largely fell within consistent bounds across maturity levels. This is an important insight: the difference between maturity levels was attributable to the focus of their budget spend: lower maturity programs spent on manual processes, while high maturity programs focused on technology innovation.
Across the board, programs that were “Maturing” or “Advanced” were more likely to report “good” or “excellent” performance in all areas of the program, including trust, performance, outcomes and integrations with the business.
Less mature programs were often seen as “necessary evils,” while those that were more advanced were more likely to be seen as “partners” to an organization.
In addition, more mature programs typically had a higher level of trust and typically had a more substantial seat at the table for decision making in the organization.

Our takeaway? Organizations can achieve better partnerships between their business and compliance teams, increasing the levels of trust and performance of compliance, by refocusing their budgets on technology that eliminates manual processes.

There are a multitude of other important findings in the report, so I would encourage you to take a look through it. If it sparks any ideas or questions, please feel free to reach out to your Hearsay account team to drive a deeper discussion on the impact to your program.