What have been the main themes of your business so far this year?
In 2014 global financial firms were required to comply with a vast amount of regulations and reporting requirements including Dodd-Frank, AIFMD, EMIR, CCAR, FDSF, BASEL, COREP & FINREP and FATCA. From that we saw our clients having to strike the right balance between short-term, regulatory driven tactical projects and building the foundation for mid- to long-term strategic technology architecture for regulatory and risk management requirements. With constantly evolving regulations, it has become critical to distinguish immediate needs from the necessary long-term framework needed to meet ongoing compliance standards.

What has surprised you in 2014?
Statistics that have recently come out this year which show a surprisingly enormous volume of fines imposed on banks in 2013. One statistic that I read this year stated that U.S. regulators had fined banks record amounts in 2013, imposing penalties and settlements paid to U.S. federal and state authorities to cost banks more than $40 billion. We are not seeing this 2013 trend reversing course anytime soon, and to better manage this new reality, firms need to implement a strategic regulatory and reporting framework to avoid fines and meet compliance standards.

What are your expectations for the duration of 2014?
In order for financial firms to adapt to this new regulatory environment, they will need to integrate and scale across operations, compliance, and risk and finance functions. The challenge is for firms to do this while meeting short-term regulatory reporting requirements and building a more integrated enterprise-wide system to meet complex and changing global regulations. A strategic regulatory platform delivers the flexibility to adapt to new and evolving regulations timely across multiple business verticals while sourcing granular data, aggregating models & calculations.