Best Technology Consultant: IBM

The financial sector has not been immune to technological advancement: traditional systems and processes are being overhauled to become faster, safer and more cost-efficient. However, the sector is now in uncharted territory, and many financial firms lack the understanding and resources to successfully integrate fintech.

IBM is assisting the entire financial sector in the implementation of fintech solutions, from using machine learning to aid regulatory compliance to improve data management. Central Banking’s FinTech & Regtech Global Award for Best Technology Consultant has this year been awarded to IBM. 

The firm’s work within the regulatory space has been invaluable; without these solutions financial firms risk failing to meet governance, risk and compliance (GRC) and regulatory reporting requirements.

IBM’s Watson platform is being developed to help with the former, ensuring firms have an automated option for managing GRC requirements. Regulatory compliance experts for the Promontory Financial Group are training Watson to think like a compliance professional. The platform will learn by continuously ingesting regulatory information as it’s developed and through interaction with real‑world applications.

Working alongside Watson is IBM’s OpenPages program. As its name suggests, OpenPages has been developed as a library of regulation, a single source of regulatory content for financial firms to search and use as updates are issued by regulators. The program also has a complete internal control framework that lets users highlight obligations for their firms and then tailor each to fit within its business lines.

The aim of the two solutions is to help risk and compliance professionals automate the assessment of regulations, speed up the understanding of its impact, and support ongoing management and remediation of controls for efficient regulatory change management. Regulators meanwhile can feel confident the firms they supervise are ensuring no gaps appear within their compliance frameworks as more regulation enters the market.

Alongside its regtech platforms, IBM is also working directly with the fintech industry to ensure a smooth transition when firms implement new technology. Through IBM’s cloud marketplace, fintech firms are able to host financial services’ application programming interfaces, which will help organisations build and share new fintech applications and data. 

IBM has not only provided a space for the financial sector to learn about these emerging technologies, but it is also leading by example and using the latest developments in machine learning and data management to inform its own processes. Banks and other financial services firms can operate with greater transparency while preserving client and stakeholder trust. Its customers can also use IBM’s advanced artificial intelligence and analytics technology for regulatory compliance.

Read the full Central Banking FinTech RegTech Global Awards 2018 Winners In Focus report