5 important questions to ask your SupTech software provider

SupTech is the use of supervisory technology by competent entities such as banking, insurance, pensions, and other financial services supervisors. It involves using technology to manage data and enables a risk-based approach to core supervisory reporting. 

If you are considering investing in supervisory technology (SupTech), it’s time to do some research. In this post, we explore five questions you should ask SupTech providers to understand which is the best supervisory data collection solution for your organisation. 

Should I build or buy a SupTech solution? 

Many regulators find that their current solution is struggling to keep pace with the latest supervisory advancements, from APIs to granular data, machine learning, risk-based analysis, and regulatory data management. 

Regulators may struggle to design and build a solution that meets all their needs both now and into the future. Historically, in Europe, large IT teams have gone with build instead of buy. However, this trend is changing as solutions become more complex to design and build, evolve fast, and regulators need their IT teams to focus on downstream data analytics challenges. Just as many are struggling with legacy systems today, it may be the case that systems built now will struggle to adapt to future innovations.  

Investing in the best supervisory data collection solution available allows you to take advantage of the technology that is available now, but also ensures you get software updates and upgrades as technology is developed, tested, and implemented.  

Can SupTech lower my costs?  

Implementing SupTech can help regulators make the best use of their resources, without overburdening their employees with time-consuming and often tedious activities like data cleansing. Well-designed SupTech will even ensure regulators focus on supervisory activities and not system administration/management. 

Many regulators find that they are now spending more and more time and resources on data collection and analysis to the point where it is becoming unmanageable. As this challenge grows, many will reach a tipping point in terms of staffing requirements.

Time savings from implementing a robust supervisory data collection solution reduces the need to hire new staff and allows your current team to spend their time on more valuable activities.  

How will a new supervisory data collection solution replace disparate systems? 

Some regulators use a variety of methods to monitor, collect, and analyse data. This can cause problems if the systems don’t speak to each other, or don’t speak the same language or standards. This can result in errors and inefficiencies. 

Those who currently operate with a range of disparate, separate systems within the data collection and analysis life cycle can generate significant efficiencies by replacing systems that don’t knit together with a single solution like the Vizor SupTech platform. 

This is achieved through advances in software, data science and the digitisation of existing best practices. In some cases, the focus of SupTech is to improve existing practices and technology. In other cases, entire processes and solutions can be reimagined and new processes can emerge. 

How does SupTech impact the relationship with financial institutions? 

Like regulators, many financial institutions and regulatory technology (RegTech) providers are increasingly concerned about the volume, complexity and frequency of data they are expected to report and manage and the impact this has on their resources. There is an opportunity for SupTech and RegTech to work in tandem to create frictionless solutions. 

Aligning SupTech and RegTech can enable a seamless flow of data between the regulator and the regulated. When the regulator and the regulated are using the same systems, the same forms and the same standards, the likelihood of “right-first-time” data is significantly higher. This reduces the burden on financial institutions and creates a collaborative and transparent ecosystem between the regulator and the regulated.  

Our team has successfully delivered projects for financial regulators in 30 different countries. Our design, product and technology teams work proactively to ensure that our off-the-shelf solutions make us the best data collection and supervisory platform for financial regulation out there.