Insights from our transformation webinar
Introduction
Control Now, a rapidly growing RegTech company headquartered in London, recently hosted a webinar illuminating the pivotal role of data transformation and data quality in transaction reporting, specifically focusing on EMIR REFIT. Given the forthcoming changes to the rules, data quality will become one of the most critical dependencies for transaction reporting.
This blog post dives into the key takeaways from the webinar while emphasising the growing significance of data quality.
Understanding Data Transformation and its challenges
The webinar commenced by elucidating the concept and process of data transformation within the context of transaction reporting, consisting of three integral stages:
Data Extraction: The process commences with data extraction from its raw source. During this phase, comprehensive and accurate data collection is paramount.
Technical Enrichment: Following data extraction, the next step is enrichment. This phase involves bridging gaps in the data, resolving inconsistencies, and ensuring data completeness. Technical enrichment plays a pivotal role in ensuring data reliability.
Transformation: The transformed data is converted into the required format that aligns with compliance standards and intended purposes.
The webinar also explored various challenges associated with data transformation, including the complexity arising from the diversity of systems employed by firms, the unique structures of businesses, and the necessity for cross-functional teams with expertise in technical development, business operations, and compliance. It was underscored that the success of any transformation project traditionally hinges on a disciplined and coordinated approach across an organisation, as even a single mistake or omission can lead to project failure or significant setbacks and delays.
Contrasting ‘The Old’ with ‘The New’
Control Now introduced its innovative tech-driven approach, contrasting it with traditional consultancy and outsourced methods. The latter often results in slow progress, high costs, and a failure to address the root causes of reporting issues, creating a repetitive cycle of activity with minimal tangible outcomes. In contrast, Control Now’s solution, built on its ‘Control Box’ platform, emphasises simplicity and outcomes, breaking free from this cycle. The benefits are substantial, including a 50% reduction in implementation time and typically over 60% cost savings compared to traditional approaches. Additionally, Control Now’s solution addresses and fixes the root causes of reporting issues and ensures compliance.
Furthermore, Control Now’s approach embraces a ‘no code’ philosophy, empowering business team members to lead change programs like EMIR REFIT implementation. This eliminates the need for developers and quality assurance resources, streamlining reporting efforts and significantly reducing costs.
Control Now’s onboarding process is effectively a change management ‘mini program.’ Their expert team guides clients in adopting the methods for maintaining high-quality data and ensuring compliance embedded into Control Box. The platform’s automatic creation of audit trails, action logs, and integration of regulations provides firms with clear processes and steps to follow, ensuring it remain up-to-date, future-proof, and optimally executed. Additionally, a rollback feature provides a safety net, allowing firms to revert to previous report versions if necessary. Onboarding consists of a bottom-up review of all systems and a thorough compliance review, with full audit trails and explanations provided.
The importance of Data Quality according to Regulators
The webinar highlighted regulators’ newfound emphasis on data quality concerning EMIR REFIT. Regulatory bodies worldwide, such as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), heavily rely on accurate, complete, and timely transaction and trade report data to fulfil their objectives and ensure proper market functioning.
ESMA published its data quality report for EMIR, MiFIR, and SFTR reporting, emphasising its success in implementing automated checks for data quality and monitoring dashboards, resulting in improved data quality within EMIR reporting. This report set the stage for further and accelerated technology adoption.
EMIR REFIT stands out due to its strong focus on ensuring high-quality data, in contrast to the previous version of EMIR, which did not explicitly mention data quality requirements. With the introduction of EMIR REFIT, data quality has become a top priority for regulators and reporting firms alike.
In response to these evolving dynamics, Control Now has developed a solution that enables the construction of reporting logic while ensuring adherence to the highest data quality standards. This comprehensive solution encompasses three key features:
Integrated Compliance Guidance: This feature seamlessly guides users by providing automated access to legislative texts, ensuring alignment with, and understanding of regulatory standards.
Action Log Management: Control Now’s solution generates ‘fix’ action logs, facilitating management and coordination among all stakeholders involved in the implementation process.
Build and Test with TR Accuracy Integration: The integrated ‘Accuracy’ tool enables users to quickly resolve data reporting accuracy issues through action logs, regulation references, and change control.
TR Accuracy, Control Now’s automated data validation software, facilitates firms to get a firm grip on data quality. It empowers users to create and implement validations without relying on development teams. Specifically designed for EMIR REFIT requirements, TR Accuracy offers real-time development and testing capabilities, ensuring high-quality data throughout the process.
Conclusion
The heightened focus on data quality in relation to EMIR REFIT underscores its crucial role in effective regulatory compliance. Control Now’s innovative technology provides firms with a root cause and permanent solution to meet the data quality standards set by EMIR REFIT and other regulatory frameworks and an end-to-end automated reporting system.
By addressing the root causes of data quality issues, Control Now offers a robust solution that instils user confidence by providing transparency and control over data. With Control Now, firms can be completely confident that they can navigate smoothly toward compliance, particularly with the upcoming EMIR REFIT reporting requirements set to go live on April 29th, 2024.
In the ever-evolving landscape of transaction reporting, firms must remain open-minded to adopting technology solutions that prioritise and deliver on data quality. This is indispensable for effectively navigating the regulatory reporting landscape – and is most definitely on the regulator’s agenda!