The diverse set or reports that investment firms are now required to submit to regulators and clients has exploded over the last decade, and does not look like abating any time soon. Most firms have approached each of these regulatory reporting requirements in isolation – each tackled sequentially as firms move from one regulatory requirement to the next – defining and implementing a standalone approach to data sourcing, processing and reporting to meet the needs of their regulator and their clients.

The result is a suite of disparate regulatory reporting operating models that only share common issues such as:

• Lack of data quality and consistency across reporting obligations
• Excessive manual data input and workflows
• High implementation and maintenance costs
• Lack of flexibility for new reporting requirements

This results more often than not in reporting inefficiencies and delays, inaccurate or missing reports and poses a significant challenge for those responsible for providing governance and oversight of regulatory reporting.

So what’s the solution? Consolidation into one integrated, regulatory reporting framework can create efficiencies across the entire reporting function. Firms can centralise their reporting operating models, designing and building flexible and scalable solutions that will not only serve their current reporting requirements but will also allow them to incorporate new and evolving reporting requirements. Creating an efficient, single reporting target operating model will benefit from:

• Normalised and consolidated data that can be managed and maintained holistically allowing the same clean data to be used across all regulator, client and internal reports
• Process and workflow improvements that will eliminate manual and redundant processes, and optimise the rest
• Clearly defined and centralised regulatory reporting governance and control framework that will mitigate operational risks through clearly defined roles and responsibilities, activities and controls
• A common approach and user experience that will make identifying and investigating breaks and issues both within and across reporting requirements much simpler

A consolidated target operating model for regulatory reporting needs to be tailored to fit the specific reporting requirements and organisation structure of the firm. It must be designed around the firm’s business model, available resources and regulatory reporting obligations, and will provide a reference point for continual assessment and introduction of evolving reporting requirements.