On 21 October 2025, SolvencyAnalytics had the pleasure of presenting at the Funds Symposium 2025: Fit for the Future – Powering up UK Funds organised by The Investment Association. Daniel Niedermayer, CEO of SolvencyAnalytics, delivered the presentation on behalf of the firm. The event brought together asset managers, service providers, and industry leaders to discuss the future of the UK funds industry and the role innovation will play in shaping it.
Daniel’s presentation, Innovation in RegTech: Transforming Regulatory Compliance, focused on how emerging technologies are redefining the regulatory technology landscape - and why artificial intelligence is likely to be the next major catalyst for change.
From post-crisis compliance to a technology-driven industry
The RegTech sector has evolved significantly over the past decade. In the years following the 2008 financial crisis, regulatory change created substantial new compliance obligations across financial services. This initial wave of demand encouraged firms to seek technology solutions capable of automating reporting, improving controls, and reducing operational risk.
Since then, the industry has matured through successive phases of digitalisation, automation, and increasing standardisation. What began as a response to regulatory burden has developed into a strategic market focused on efficiency, scalability, and data quality.
A growing market supported by innovation
RegTech continues to benefit from broader advances in technology, particularly in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and big data infrastructure. These developments have reduced implementation costs while improving the scalability and resilience of modern compliance solutions.
As a sector with relatively limited legacy constraints and a strong affinity for digital transformation, RegTech is well positioned to benefit from these trends. Industry forecasts now suggest the global RegTech market could expand materially over the remainder of the decade, reflecting growing demand for more efficient compliance operating models.
AI risks: solving symptoms instead of root causes
While enthusiasm around AI is understandable, it is equally important to recognise its limitations and risks. Much of the public debate has focused on governance, reproducibility, and intellectual property considerations. These are valid concerns and will remain important as adoption accelerates.
However, one risk is often overlooked: the temptation to use AI as a shortcut rather than addressing structural issues at source.
In financial services, AI can be highly effective at reconciling data, identifying anomalies, or automating fragmented processes. Yet if firms rely on AI to repair poor-quality source data instead of improving upstream standards, they risk treating symptoms rather than underlying causes.
For regulatory reporting in particular, continued investment in data governance, taxonomy alignment, and common market standards remains essential.
AI opportunities: towards consistent regulatory interpretation
Beyond efficiency gains, the more transformative opportunity may lie elsewhere: improving consistency in how regulation is interpreted.
Today, one of the key challenges across compliance functions is that the same regulatory requirement can be interpreted differently across jurisdictions, institutions, and even individuals. This creates complexity, increases advisory costs, and makes scalable RegTech solutions harder to implement.
AI tools are increasingly being used to review legal texts, summarise regulatory developments, and analyse supervisory guidance. As these systems learn from large volumes of real-world decisions, market practice, and interpretative precedent, they may help create a more consistent and data-driven understanding of compliance expectations.
Over time, this could support a form of practical convergence — reducing ambiguity and making regulatory implementation more predictable across markets.
Looking ahead
The greatest long-term impact of AI on RegTech may not be the reduction of manual work alone. It may be its ability to bring greater convergence to regulatory interpretation, enabling solutions that are more scalable, efficient, and user-friendly.
For firms operating in increasingly complex regulatory environments, that shift could prove just as valuable as automation itself.
SolvencyAnalytics would like to thank the The Investment Association for hosting an excellent event and for the opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the future of regulatory compliance.