RegTech is here to strengthen the Funds Industry and to protect the end customer - this was one of the key findings during the event entitled "RegTech Solutions for the Funds Industry" held at the Hotel Le Royal in Luxembourg city centre.

It also became clear that the opportunity RegTech provides for Luxembourg is much bigger than FinTech as it brings real relevance and real opportunities to strengthen the existing industry.

The event, organised by FinnoLux, along with Enterprise Ireland and the International RegTech Association (IRTA), attracted more than 60 guests from the Luxembourg Funds Industry, who could find out more about the value of Regulatory Technology for their industry and the benefits of overcoming the competition between Europe’s biggest funds centres.

In his opening speech, the Irish Ambassador to Luxembourg, H.E. Peadar Carpenter, stressed the need for people to adapt and find systems to comply. Keynote speaker, Dr Subas Roy, global chair of IRTA, emphasised "RegTech is the Innovation-in Trust as its very purpose is to enable sustainable, purposeful businesses. Enabling the financial services to become future-resilient as their future is heavily dependent on its ability to become more trusted, more customer focused and more demand-led". In this sense, RegTech enables the Luxembourgish Funds Industry to redefine itself and shape its own powerful future.

At the event six Irish companies - FundRecs, FundCalcs, RiskSystem, Corlytics, AQ Metrics and Gecko Governance - presented their highly innovative RegTech solutions. These solutions ranged from cloud-based regulatory risk reporting and automation to blockchain-proven compliancy as well as AI-fed text analytics, all being perfect matches to the Luxembourg Funds Industry. Bert Boerman, CEO of Luxembourg-based Governance.io, emphasised during the round table discussion the existing relations and compatibility between the Irish and Luxembourgish RegTech companies. Laurent Marochini, Chair of the ALFI working group on Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, confirmed the openness of the industry to collaboration by stating "we are competing for end customers but not in terms of technology or being compliant. We should find niches and ways to work together between Ireland and Luxembourg". Matt Elton, Vice Chair IRTA, elaborated "RegTech’s value proposition has real relevance to Luxembourg; RegTech taps into the talent and capability the academic institutions here, such as LIST and SnT, have built in the past years, while at the same time it strengthens the position of our Funds Industry".

The round-table discussion between Bert Boerman, Laurent Marochini, Matt Elton and Alan Ridgeway, Irish independent director living 23 years in Luxembourg, concluded that the shared challenges both Funds Centres face, increase the need for a common voice of the Industry.

Photo (L-R): Round Table discussion with Laurent Marochini, Matt Elton, Bert Boerman, Alan Ridgeway and moderated by Paul Barreveld