RegTech NZ – What caught our eye this month

May the fourth be with you this month, and if you’re still teetering on automating your compliance activities our team has collated a barrage of convincing reasons to activate your RegTech strategy.

RegTech Innovation

A new service from First AML, the NZ founded anti-money laundering scaleup, has impressed us. They have launched a Trust Deed Reader tool to reduce the extraction of key details from trust deeds to 60 seconds or less, simplifying KYC and AML processes.

Extracting essential data from trust deeds by hand is a time-consuming and sometimes error-strewn process which requires specialist AML knowledge. To combat this, Trust Reader uses AI to gather key details and automatically identifies controllers and beneficial owners, including trustees, settlers and appointors. Trust deed tasks can now be completed in 60 seconds or less, which provides 90% faster data capture and beneficial owner identification.

Compliance and Governance for early-stage NZ Tech – Tim Larkin

Over the last few years I’ve come across many cases where early stage businesses don’t have the governance in place that investors would like to see.  Having been through the process myself, I thought that if I was in a position to help others address this, we may all be better off.

Dacreed already provides a training, governance and compliance solution for the financial services industry which it has applied to itself as a tech business.  If the need is there, Dacreed can create a solution designed for early-stage tech businesses, complete with templates, precedents and recommended processes.  Like all activity, I’m looking for market feedback and confirmation that there is a product market fit.  If you think this may be of interest, please complete this very short survey.  We’re also looking for pilot customers (no charge for 6 months) if anyone is interested.

Digital Identity Trust Framework – Vincent McCartney

New Zealand’s Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023 comes into effect on 1 July. In preparation for this, our friends at Digital Identity New Zealand are running a session on 14 May 2024 to provide you with an overview of the Framework, the role of the regulator, and provide an update of the development of the rules and regulations.

This should be a great session if you’re a RegTech looking to get into this space, or a company who is considering adopting a Digital Identity solution and want to know the basics around what you should be considering.

RegTech collaborators – Prue Tyler

Are you a tech company who is finding sorting your legal docs a bit too stressful, frustrating, or expensive? We’ve come across On Your Terms who are embracing technology to provide more convenient and affordable services the legal industry has been a bit slow to adopt. On Your Terms, is a legal tech platform recently started by three experienced female Kiwi business lawyers who saw an opportunity to help make legals easy for New Zealand start-ups and SMEs.

Using simple, user-friendly document automation and chatbot technology (not Gen AI), users are able to generate customised legal documents and tools safely and reliably in minutes from any device for a fraction of the price of traditional legal services. All the base documents have been prepared by qualified, expert New Zealand lawyers and peer-reviewed, and there is loads of free information and guidance available. Stripping out as much legalese as possible, On Your Terms aims to make the process and the legal documents, tools and resources as simple and stress-free as possible. They also have a network of lawyers and law firms which we can connect customers with for fixed fee legal advice if they need extra reassurance or additional tailoring to their specific business needs.

The documents available cover the full lifecycle of a business from start-up, shareholders’ agreements, hiring employees or contractors, taking on premises, customer sales terms, protecting IP rights, to sale of the business, across a broad range of industries. To find out more, read this, visit their website, or follow them on LinkedIn.

RegTech world – Janet Chenery

This month’s worldly reads show that AI is still in the ‘hypecycle’. Or is that an algorithm not adapting to my online footprint quick enough? She’ll be right, it passed the Company verification.

Recently, I have been following Graham Barrow, who is highlighting the flood of potentially false business being set up in the UK’s Companies House. It’s fascinating, once you look at this and ask, how can they get away with it? A tad worrying if your identity verification solution uses this database, letting the fraudsters seem genuine once they’re in the system, that’s going to bite someone!

Spend spend spend

This Fintech Global article explores why Banks are increasing their RegTech spend, my favourite quote  – “forward thinking companies are starting to realise the limitations of using excel spreadsheets” Anthony Quinn CEPO of Arctic intelligence Australia

RoIe of RegTech

Julian Fenwick – our RegTech peer from across the ditch shared this article on the benefit of RegTech for Customer Satisfaction , eureka a positive ROI on compliance, sign up now!

Clickbait headlines

Lloyds Banking Group plans to cut jobs in risk management after an internal review found the function was a “blocker to our strategic transformation”. It has created a tsunami of responses online, initially my reaction was woah hold up, but then sense kicks in, not done right it can be a blocker, put the right systems in place and you don’t need as many staff doing low level work. Sometimes you just have to read beyond the headline and process what the story is really saying – will be watching that space

RegTech innovators & collaborators – Emilie McCallum

Mosaic and Manifest Climate Partner to Help Sustainability Teams Manage Climate-related Risks & Opportunities

The partnership empowers organisations along their sustainability journey and helps clients improve climate-related disclosures.

Mosaic, a specialist consulting firm based in Australasia, today announced its partnership with Manifest Climate, the leading climate intelligence software, to bring organisations comprehensive solutions that support recent New Zealand TCFD regulation, in addition to scalability to other relevant frameworks such as Nature disclosures.

Now, combined with Manifest’s AI-powered climate assessment solution, companies can conduct gap analyses and peer benchmarking in real-time to align with regulation requirements, eliminating manual research, and gaining a clear view of how their climate data measures against standards and frameworks.

“In Manifest Climate we have found a solution set delivering a high level of client benefit and alignment with our strategic direction around AI in the climate space, that it just made sense for it to become a function of what we can deliver”, said Myles Allan, founding partner at Mosaic.

Through the partnership, organisations can access industry-leading solutions to ensure their climate strategy and disclosures meet global requirements. Organisations can:

• Uncover gaps in real-time against mandatory climate disclosure requirements
• Accelerate compliance through tailored action plans with prioritised activities
• Monitor climate-related risks across their industry and supply chain
• Benchmark disclosures against competitors, peers and or industry leader

“Manifest Climate enables Mosaic to focus on the strategic elements of climate-related disclosure projects by automating the manual work associated with conducting gap analyses and peer benchmarking research,” continued Myles Allan. “This translates into unbiased, tailored action plans for our clients, that fast tracks success along their sustainability journey.”

“Our partnership with Mosaic is transforming how organisations in New Zealand tackle climate change,” said Jeremy Greven, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Manifest Climate.

“By combining Manifest Climate’s AI technology with Mosaic’s consulting expertise, we’re equipping companies to meet TCFD regulations efficiently and succeed beyond compliance. This collaboration is not just about managing risks – it’s about seizing opportunities and leading in sustainability.”

If you want to know more about what we are doing, and get involved, please connect with us at RegTech NZ or follow our LinkedIn page RegTech NZ.

Janet Chenery
Chair
RegTechNZ