FutureFit 2022 – VERMEG Regulatory Reporting Conference Summary

On 28th of September 2022, we delivered FutureFit 2022, the UK’s Leading Regulatory Reporting Conference focused on prudential and financial reporting! VERMEG hosted over 200 very well-engaged delegates and we were delighted with what we were able to cover.  We are hugely grateful for the input from firms including VERMEG clients, and from partners, trade associations, and regulators all working together to make the event such a success. 

What did the conference cover? 

FutureFit 2022 focussed on how should firms engineer, change or roadmap their regulatory reporting processes to be fit for the future.  We considered many factors driving change.  These included regulatory pressures from the Dear CEO and from the UK’s regulatory roadmap, if firms should accelerate moving to cloud and really embrace hybrid working or other operating model impacts – including better workflow and the challenge of data quality. We included a debate on the reinvention of the technology architecture by which reporting will be done, how the regulators are driving this, and how this should influence reporting processes too.

We raised the question of if the relative pause – before Basel 3.1, before substantive changes in reporting mechanisms take effect – is a big opportunity.  In fact, 2023 represents an excellent time to upgrade the operating model for regulatory reporting, to move to cloud, to deliver all the Dear CEO challenges, and to achieve a host of operational advantages whilst there is a chance to do so – to get, in fact, FutureFit!

Conclusions and outcome 

This conference developed over four chapters, here is a brief summary. You can also find the slides at the links below. 

Chapter 1: “Getting Future Fit”:

Questions and answers about what a regulatory reporting setup should be, to be fit for the future.  Our speakers and expert panelists considered the issues, spelling out many operating model challenges.  The debate moved on to consider the benefits of moving to the cloud.   The audience recognised the biggest drivers for change included technology enablement, but mostly everyone was concerned about the ever-moving regulatory reporting requirements: 

The audience also recognised many changes done (and to be done) around achieving improvements since the 2021 Dear CEO, especially around the automation of manual processes and improvements to systems and controls with associated senior management engagement.  There is good progress:

Chapter 2: “AGILE”:

FutureFit 2022 conference received an energising review of VERMEG’s AGILE reporting suite, and how this represents a fit solution for the future demands that had just been considered.  It was shown how AGILE would gear firms very well for the future with a particular focus on cloud deployment, distributed workflow, exception and tolerance-based management, and senior management engagement.

Chapter 3: “VERMEG Watching Brief”:

This section considered a change that was yet to be better defined, with a focus on the impact of crypto assets becoming mainstream in the financial system, and on how BCBS and the PRA would treat these for prudential reporting.  We also reviewed the expected massive impact of ESG requirements on regulatory reporting and in particular on the acquisition and management of data, and the need to move to a single ESG taxonomy.  The challenges around ESG generated most questions and interaction, with crypto being less demanding.  The polling results however showed some firms being onto the challenge, but many still being at the starting gate.

Chapter 4: “Incoming!”:

This was an open acknowledgment of the changes, potentially substantial, in how regulatory reporting would be done – both an industry view and that being curated by the regulators under Transforming Data Collection “TDC”.  Our expert panel debated how reporting could substantially change in the future, with reference to the many regulator and industry initiatives.  The reinvention of regulatory reporting, as VERMEG put it, might involve moving to more granular reporting, moving the computation elements to an open-source cloud resource, and would likely involve less movement of and repeated mapping of data, and all this would need comprehensive disambiguation and much-improved data quality and a lot of industry collaboration for which there was considerable enthusiasm (see the poll).  Firms interested in collaboration with the UK regulators on TDC can email TDCSecretariat@bankofengland.co.uk Conference also heard from VERMEG about incoming reporting roadmap changes, these are to be found on the associated presentation slides.