Grant Thornton joins Regulatory Genome Project

Grant Thornton has announced its collaboration with the Regulatory Genome Project at the University of Cambridge, a new project that allows financial firms to better understand their global risks and obligations.

According to the firm, regulation in the digital era is “highly complex and globally fragmented, with rules changing at a rapid pace”. To address this issue, the group, alongside CMS, Macfarlanes, and Mastercard, is supporting the new initiative which is set to “create an inclusive and easily accessible repository of regulatory information for the digital economy”.

The Regulatory Genome will be an open-access source of machine-readable information for use by both regulators and firms in the financial services industry. The initiative meets a “vital” informational need, helping regulators create interoperable frameworks to reflect rapidly changing global rules in the financial services industry, while also helping firms understand and abide by these rules. 

The system will promote real-time understanding of the shifting body of laws and requirements, while bringing clarity and transparency to the global financial system.

The cross-industry reportedly commitment underlines the project’s “scope and ambition”. According to Grant Thronton, the amount of global regulation in the digital economy means that humans “cannot compile such a repository alone”, so the project uses machine learning and natural language processing to convert human-readable text into machine-readable code. 

This enables the creation of a “comprehensive, searchable and digestible” body of regulations that will provide quick and relevant information on any company’s risks and obligations.

Dr. Robert Wardrop, Faculty (Professor level) in Management Practice and Director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at University of Cambridge Judge Business School, founded the project.

He said: “The Regulatory Genome Project aims to promote financial inclusion in the global digital economy. A repository of machine-readable regulation will provide a de facto standard for regulatory compliance by firms operating around the world. We expect to announce many other collaborators joining the project in the coming months.”