Key points on Reg Tech
- Reg tech encompasses technological solutions dedicated to managing and overseeing regulatory compliance.
- It addresses a dual challenge: operational efficiency and the ability to produce verifiable evidence.
- Compliance can no longer be purely declarative; it must be documented, traceable and legally enforceable.
- Digital trust mechanisms determine the legal value of reg tech frameworks.
What is reg tech?
Reg tech (regulatory technology) refers to the set of digital tools designed to assist organisations in complying with their regulatory obligations. Initially developed in the banking and financial sectors (fintech), these solutions have progressively expanded to all activities subject to high compliance requirements.
They notably cover:
- the collection and verification of regulatory information;
- automated transaction monitoring;
- anomaly detection;
- the production of regulatory reporting;
- the retention of supporting data and documents.
Beyond automation, reg tech seeks to structure auditable processes capable of withstanding administrative or judicial scrutiny.
Why reg tech has become essential for legal and compliance departments
The growth in data volumes and the increasing complexity of regulatory frameworks have rendered occasional controls insufficient. Authorities now expect organisations to be able to reconstruct precisely a decision, a transaction or a process.
Reg tech solutions make it possible to automate controls, record sensitive actions and centralise supporting materials. For legal and compliance professionals, the challenge is twofold: securing organisational compliance and having factual elements capable of protecting the liability of the function.
Reg tech and digital trust: an inseparable foundation
The effectiveness of a reg tech framework is not assessed solely by its processing capacity. It depends on the legal reliability of the data it handles. Automated reporting or application registers lose all relevance if they cannot establish the authenticity, integrity and temporal precedence of the information.
Digital compliance requires the ability to demonstrate, through digital trust mechanisms, the existence of data at a given date, the absence of subsequent alteration and the identity of the entity that generated the information. These guarantees fall within the scope of digital trust, without which reg tech frameworks remain open to challenge.
Evidentiary use cases for reg tech
Recent European regulations reflect a clear shift: compliance is now based on the ability to produce verifiable evidence, rather than on mere declarations.
Omnibus Directive: evidencing price transparency
The Omnibus Directive requires online commerce operators to demonstrate the reality of reference prices used as the basis for promotions. Reg tech frameworks can automate price collection and build historical records. Their legal value nevertheless depends on the ability to guarantee the integrity and temporal precedence of the retained data, in particular through timestamping mechanisms.
AI Act: documenting artificial intelligence systems
The Artificial Intelligence Regulation introduces enhanced documentation and traceability obligations, particularly for high-risk systems. Reg tech tools can ensure traceability of model versions, datasets and automated decisions. The evidentiary issue is central: organisations must be able to demonstrate the actual functioning of a system at a specific point in time.
DORA: operational continuity and incident traceability
The DORA Regulation requires financial entities to demonstrate their capacity to manage risks related to information technologies. Reg tech solutions enable the recording of incidents, the documentation of resilience testing and the retention of event logs that can be relied upon in the event of supervisory review.
NIS 2: cybersecurity and accountability
The NIS 2 Directive strengthens security obligations and the accountability of management bodies. Reg tech frameworks contribute to tracing security actions, decisions taken and incident notifications. Compliance relies on the ability to reconstruct facts in a reliable and legally enforceable manner.
MiCA: traceability and governance of crypto-assets
The MiCA Regulation imposes high requirements on crypto-asset market participants in terms of transparency and governance. Reg tech tools ensure transaction traceability, the retention of regulatory records and the production of compliant reporting, provided that the authenticity and integrity of the data are guaranteed.
Legal challenges and points of attention when implementing reg tech frameworks
Implementing a reg tech framework is not limited to selecting a tool. It requires an analysis of applicable requirements, the identification of relevant data and end-to-end securing of the evidentiary chain.
Artificial intelligence and automated controls
The integration of advanced automation mechanisms raises a major legal issue: the traceability of automated decisions. A compliant framework must make it possible to identify input data, applied rules and successive versions of the models used. Failing this, the outputs produced become difficult to defend.
Relevance and quality of data
Compliance relies on legally relevant data whose certainty of date and integrity can be established. Data that are unqualified, improperly timestamped or insufficiently contextualised may lose all evidentiary value. Reg tech therefore requires prior consideration of the legal quality of data.
Cybersecurity and system integrity
A security breach or undetected alteration can undermine the entire compliance chain. The ability to produce evidence also presupposes demonstrating that systems have not been compromised and that data have not been altered.
Scalability and consistency
Reg tech frameworks must be designed to operate at scale. Partial or intermittent compliance weakens the consistency of evidentiary records and complicates their presentation.
Presentation of evidence
Finally, presentation is the decisive stage of the framework. Producing compliant data is not sufficient; organisations must be able to assemble a structured, intelligible and contextualised evidentiary file for a third party.
Reg tech: towards demonstrable compliance
Reg tech reflects the shift from declarative compliance to demonstrable and verifiable compliance. For legal departments, the challenge lies in embedding these tools within a coherent digital trust chain capable of withstanding audit, supervisory review and litigation.
As regulatory requirements continue to intensify, the ability to produce reliable, unaltered and time-stamped evidence is becoming a structuring pillar of any reg tech strategy.
