RegTech, the future of banking: Deloitte and Appway launch collaboration on out-of-the-box compliance solutions

Appway, the Swiss-based global software company, and compliance expert and leading professional services firm Deloitte Switzerland have partnered up to launch four managed services offerings. This collaboration combines the best of digitization and regulatory expertise to offer innovative and reliable RegTech solutions to the Swiss financial services industry.

The complementary offering will pair Appway’s award-winning technology and deep understanding of onboarding process digitization with Deloitte’s market-leading regulatory, tax and legal, consulting and outsourcing expertise. The solutions will help financial institutions navigate through a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex business landscape.

Banks should leverage RegTech to reduce costs and drive innovation

Today, financial service providers face more compliance burdens than ever before. The rising costs and complexity of building and maintaining market-specific regulatory processes are a significant challenge for Swiss banks and asset managers – next to the cost and innovation challenges they are already facing. Regulatory compliance is mandatory, but it is also non-differentiating and is becoming costlier. This is the main reason why financial service providers are increasingly investing in smart solutions that draw on today’s technology and that spread the costs of regulatory compliance across industry players – RegTech.

Appway and Deloitte collaboration: 4 managed services offerings

The cooperation between Appway and Deloitte, presented at today’s Appway Sphere for Banking event in Geneva, consists of four innovative and reliable managed services offerings:

• With DMS Concierge, the automated onboarding workflow is enriched with a function that provides users withsecure, real-time access to Deloitte subject-matter experts. For example, when struggling with a FATCA classification, users can contact their “concierge” (i.e. Deloitte compliance officer) within the workflow via chat function or VoIP, who will, if needed, involve a Deloitte FATCA specialist. The assessment and the advice is directly documented in the client profile.
• Compliance Link allows users to redirect entire working tasks (e.g. formality control, background screening, etc.) to Deloitte Managed Services (DMS). Using industry-leading technology and tools, DMS aligns the data and the working steps of the applied process to a dynamic risk assessment, thereby optimizing costs while warranting compliance. Banks can thus ensure that their compliance departments receive the right basis for their work, enabling them to focus on what is important – bank-specific matters.
• GetAware provides banks with detailed and reliable information about (potential) clients, which increases clarity on risk exposure as to client relationships, thus minimizing compliance and reputational risks. The adaptable, integrated risk engine establishes the client screening strategy and runs background screenings in several phases. 
• The RegIntegrator module provides country-specific rule sets, such as Anti Money Laundering and KYC-specific laws and regulations, including their interpretations by local subject-matter experts.

“Several of our clients suggested that we should partner with Appway as their longstanding experience in digitalization provides a clear benefit to the financial services industry. So we acted on their feedback,” said Micha Bitterli, Head of Managed Services at Deloitte Switzerland. “It’s a great fit: Deloitte benefits from Appway’s leading technology, while Appway draws on Deloitte’s market-leading regulatory, tax and consulting expertise. With this cooperation, we are sending an even clearer signal to the market that Deloitte plays an important role in the RegTech market.”

Andrea Buzzi, Head of Solutions at Appway, stated, “We are excited to work with Deloitte. Our partnership demonstrates how collaboration works in today’s connected markets – combining the key capabilities of two parties into a single offering –, and how the market benefits from the targeted growth of the Appway ecosystem.”

For existing Appway clients, the collaboration ensures that investments made are protected, as the modules are designed to be easily integrated into existing processes, e.g. the Appway Client Onboarding solution. By delivering the process as a managed service, the costs are minimized. The offering includes options for digital onboarding, network visualization of client relationships for compliance or business development purposes, and electronic signatures, amongst others.

The services related to the solutions will be delivered by Deloitte Managed Services, which operates as a service provider and a single point of contact into the global Deloitte network. While the collaboration mainly focuses on current and future clients of Appway platform, the individual modules can also be integrated into other workflow solutions. Moreover, DMS offers a standard onboarding process for mid-sized and smaller banks that is ready to use out-of-the-box, but easy to customize and updated in case of regulatory changes.