The future of compliance: Do more and do it faster with smaller budgets

Earlier this year, Accenture published its annual Global Compliance Risk Study, a survey of 151 senior compliance officers at banking, capital markets and insurance institutions around the globe. The findings, in brief, reported that pressures facing the compliance function have led to greater focus and clarity within these departments. In essence, compliance professionals tasked with cutting costs while keeping pace with rapid change had to (again!) do more with less – which means greater reliance on technology.

So, while the need for and demands on compliance teams is growing, compliance budgets are being pressed to shrink. Of those surveyed, 71 percent reported they are facing cost reduction targets. Yet more than one in three (35 percent) say business growth is the most important driver of change in their responsibilities. Another issue is finding talent given the sector’s higher-than-expected unmanaged employee attrition.

Given these pressures, the study finds that compliance officers are revamping the function to fit a new business model – one that tasks them to become agile business partners, able to identify an anticipate new risks and exposures.

Is compliance getting more respect?

Yes, say more than half of those surveyed. Sixty percent report that the responsibilities previously performed by compliance in the second line of defense are now shifting to the first line.

Are compliance budgets shrinking?

Yes. Nearly three in four respondents (72 percent) say they face quantitative cost reduction goals of more than 10 percent over three years.

How bad is turnover among compliance teams?

Worse than expected. Fifty percent of Accenture’s survey respondents say they face a level of unmanaged employee attrition greater than expected.

Is technology playing a bigger role in compliance?

Yes. Eighty-four percent of those responding say they now have a technology compliance officer within the compliance function.

How are compliance teams moving forward?

Faced with an industry rapidly rolling out new business models, compliance departments must reengineer processes to accommodate management’s new focuses and mitigate potential changes to compliance risk profiles due to the emergence of digital identity.

Like the tech-pressed investment side of the business, compliance, too, is being pressed to execute faster and more cost-efficiently. This included investing in such new technologies as artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and regtech, along with more industrialized collaboration with peer institutions to drive down “costs of ownership” in areas such as anti-money laundering and regulatory change.

Increasingly financial institutions and their compliance departments are replicating the business models of the tech industry. To appropriately oversee the rapid pivots in firms’ go-to-market approaches, means compliance teams must establish more dynamic, higher-touch work environments that identify risk and connectivity to bad actors earlier in business transactions. Leading compliance programs also view timely exposure to new business as empowering a new generation of compliance officers, one that brings value at the outset to permit nimble yet controlled capture of new market opportunities.

The new compliance mandate: Faster, smarter and cheaper, but how?

That’s where Patrina comes in. For more than 25 years, Patrina has been helping compliance professionals like you keep track of “bad apples,” and stay on the “straight and narrow” efficiently and cost-effectively. So, let’s talk. Call 212-233-1155 to ask about Patrina’s easy-to-use, cost-effective, designated third-party services, our comprehensive 8-module compliance solution, and compliant data capture & file storage, and records archiving specifically designed for the financial services community. Be smart. Be covered. Let’s talk.