Regulatory technology feasibility study launched

Regulators in Australia are turning to technology in an effort to improve poor market disclosure by issuers.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said that it will be working with five so-called regtech firms to explore the possibility of using regulatory technology to help uncover and analyze deficient corporate disclosure.

The five firms will help carry out an initial three-month feasibility study, which is expected to be followed by 15 months of developing and testing possible solutions.

The work will focus on crafting tools to help the regulator analyze firms compliance with their continuous disclosure obligations, prohibitions on misleading disclosure, and anti-market manipulation requirements.

“Working towards an innovative solution has the potential to transform ASIC’s ability to harness technology to reduce regulatory burden, while enhancing market integrity,” ASIC commissioner Cathie Armour said in a release.

“ASIC deliberately designed a challenge around market disclosure that is a representative problem so that potential regtech solutions can also be applied to other problem use cases by agencies and industry,” she added.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.