ASIC and regtech

ASIC considers that the regulatory technology (regtech) sector has enormous potential to help businesses build a culture of compliance, identify learning opportunities, and save time and money relating to regulatory matters.

ASIC recognises that in various use cases regtech has been in deployment for some time (e.g. monitoring of trading and regulatory reporting) and is making an important contribution to promoting regulatory compliance, market integrity, and positive consumer outcomes.

On 7 August 2018, ASIC received federal government funding for financial years (FY) 2018–19 and 2019–20 to promote Australia as a world leader in developing and adopting regtech solutions to risk management and compliance problems relating to financial services. This funding meant ASIC could build on its existing engagement and collaboration approach in promoting the potential of regtech to financial firms.

This additional funding has been used to develop a series of regtech initiatives. These initiatives focused on the potential use of technology to help businesses deal with conduct of business compliance issues, thereby promoting better outcomes for consumers and market integrity. ASIC consciously chose difficult regulatory problems to examine the potential of regtech that is still in development, or in an experimental phase, rather than focusing on more mature services.

See REP 653 ASIC's regtech initiatives 2018–19 summarising the regtech initiatives and events conducted in FY2018-19. See ASIC Regtech initiative series 2019-20 for details on the upcoming regtech initiatives and events.

Additionally the Innovation Hub offers informal assistance to eligible Australian regulatory technology (regtech) startups and scaleups to help develop their products and services. We can provide:

• synthetic sample training datasets to help support trials and proofs of concept
• opportunities to network with like-minded people at ASIC regtech forums.

We can tailor our advice to help you, depending on the type of innovative regtech product or service you’ve developed and the assistance you require

• Regtechs: apply for assistance
• Natural language processing trials
• Upcoming events

How your input helps ASIC

If your business is developing regtech, we’d like to hear from you. ASIC is keen to collaborate and learn more about the regtech work you are doing.

Regtech has enormous potential to help organisations build a culture of compliance, identify learning opportunities and save time and money relating to regulation. It also has the potential to support ASIC in the way it undertakes its regulatory work, including how it engages with different industries.

Get in touch

If you’re an Australian business, please contact innovationhub@asic.gov.au and let us know more about your regtech product or service.