What is RegTech?

The latest buzzword circulating within the financial services industry is “RegTech”. Cited by Deloitte as the smaller brother of FinTech and a developing area, RegTech is the term coined to describe the innovative use of technology to deliver regulatory compliance.

And it’s not just within the technology and consulting industries that RegTech is being talked about. In November 2015, the Financial Conduct Authority, issued a “Call for Input” on how they could support the development and adoption of RegTech, as a direct result of a UK Government instruction that they identify ways to support the adoption of new technologies to facilitate the delivery of regulatory requirements.

While the phrase RegTech may be relatively new, the practice of using technology to facilitate regulatory requirements is not. HotDocs is a prime example.

For a number of years, our clients – including global banks, insurance providers and international law firms – have been using HotDocs document automation software to save time and increase accuracy in the production of frequently used documents and forms. Another key benefit of HotDocs technology is that these same content authors can also use HotDocs templates to put in place the control required to ensure regulatory compliance.

Using HotDocs to transform habitually used business documents into intelligent templates provides document authors with the ability to build in rules that adhere to internal policy or external regulation. The subject matter experts who create document content for others to issue can incorporate tight control that ensures compliance with the latest regulations and directives. The HotDocs forward publishing function means that changes can be applied prior to new regulations coming in and accurate, updated templates can be made available to document users on the legally required date. Version control ensures that only the most up to date template is available for use, negating the risk of any old and non-compliant documents being issued.

Although an established technology, with many of our clients opting for our on premise solutions, HotDocs can also fit the RegTech mould with our cloud solutions – or a hybrid of both. With a multitude of business critical documents caught up in the external regulation loop, a document automation solution like HotDocs can go a long way to ensuring compliance and avoiding the repercussions of non-compliance.