SGRep - A concept for the future of regulatory reporting in Singapore

Global regulatory regimes and reporting have improved significantly since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and the Basel reforms were broadly deemed sufficient.

However, many stakeholders in the financial industry, such as financial institutions (FIs), regulators, and central banks, as well as the wider public feel the need to further improve upon this system to a) further strengthen financial market stability while b) reducing regulatory overhead which increases the cost of financial services. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is at the forefront of innovation to achieve these goals for the financial services industry in Singapore. Financial institutions in Singapore are well supported to embrace technology to strengthen and achieve efficiencies in risk management and compliance functions.

Regnology, leveraging a case study with Clearstream in Singapore, conducted a PoC for a new, two-staged concept to improve upon the current regulatory reporting system by deploying a) a state-of-the-art solution for current regulatory reporting creation on the financial institutions’ side and data collection on the regulatory authority’s side (SGRep Reporting Factory) and b) a future solution for fully granular, standardized, integrated, automated regulatory reporting by employing the Regnology RegOps concept (SGRep RegOps). Regnology has built prototype systems showcasing an implementation of both models from the perspectives of both the regulator and the financial institution. The prototype builds are based on Regnology’s software products Abacus360 Banking and the Abacus Regulator V3. This PoC project was awarded the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof of Concept (POC) grant on 21-June-2021. The FSTI POC grant provides funding support for experimentation, development, and dissemination of nascent innovative technologies in the financial services sector.

Over the course of the project, it became clear that both the SGRep Factory model and the SGRep RegOps model make sense and would be beneficial for the regulatory reporting operation in Singapore. A proposal has been made for a two-phased, consecutive introduction of both models. Based on the results of the proof-of-concept and feedback from the stakeholders, this approach seems feasible. With the introduction of the SGRep model, it is expected that the operation and change cost for regulatory reporting in Singapore could be considerably decreased for the financial institutions increasing operational reliability and data insight for MAS; ultimately, benefitting the wider public with a more resilient and efficient as well as safer financial sector.