To date, many RegTechs have focussed on resolving individual problems, resulting in a fragmented market and an oversupply of vendors.

Recently, this has started to change, with a number of partnerships being formed between RegTechs, as they move towards providing a holistic RegTech solution. But partnerships aren't the only way to achieve holistic compliance.

We speak with Matt Smith, CEO of SteelEye, about the RegTech market and how a data-centric approach enables holistic compliance.

1. What does SteelEye do?
   SteelEye is a data company at heart, capturing and normalising data from multiple sources and making it available on one consolidated platform. Ultimately, we make sense of a wide range of data – from trades, communications, Bloomberg chat, market and reference data, as well as news and social media sources.

   By doing so, we help financial firms solve for complex regulatory compliance challenges and leverage their data in new ways, offering a comprehensive range of asset class agnostic RegTech services, including regulatory reporting, trade surveillance, communications surveillance, Best Execution and TCA, analytics and more.
    

2. Who are your clients?
   We founded SteelEye in October 2017 and now have over 60 clients using a combination of our data platform and RegTech services. Interest has grown significantly during 2020.

   Our clients include broker dealers, Hedge Funds, Asset Managers, Banks, Family Offices and Commodity Traders.
    

3. How do you differentiate your services?
   SteelEye is a data analytics firm. A lot of platform solutions are built by regulatory specialists and not technologists. Our advantage is that we are able to bring together structured and unstructured data, to make sense of that data, and then apply it to a range of regulatory requirements.

   SteelEye combines a leading technology stack and the widest range of RegTech services in the market, all of which we have developed ourselves. We also offer real-time analysis which is different from most competitors.

   Our technology is purpose-built in the cloud, which has proven advantages over on-premise technology. Also, a small but important point is that we store client data in a specified country in the client's region, where other vendors don't offer this option – some store clients' European data in the US for example.

   What really sets us apart is our powerful analytics and AI capabilities which completely transform how firms use their financial and regulatory information. This represents an opportunity for firms to gain a truer understanding of their business, make better decisions and ultimately improve their performance.
    

4. What is holistic compliance?
   RegTechs have traditionally provided individual solutions, built for specific requirements. For example, firms often use one solution for MiFID II transaction reporting, another for the MiFID II best execution requirements, with additional siloed platforms for conduct/communications oversight and trade surveillance, and so on.

   The problem with this approach is that many of these mandates use largely the same data, which is being sent to multiple siloed compliance platforms.

   We approach holistic compliance using advanced data management – capturing and normalising all the data required for the aforementioned mandates on a single platform. RegTech modules sit on top of a data platform and enable firms to satisfy a range of different compliance needs efficiently. Further, unified data enables firms to better interrogate their information – gaining value add insights about their organisation and performance.

   SteelEye is a holistic compliance platform – creating a single platform for all compliance needs, from regulatory reporting, communications and trade surveillance, and Best Execution/TCA.
    

5. What does this mean for clients?
   Ultimately, holistic compliance provides clients with a comprehensive and flexible data platform that provides a future-proofed response to firms' regulatory needs. It also allows firms to fully harness the power of their information and derive incremental insight about their business and performance, enabling efficiency gains in other parts of their business.