The Australian financial market regulator, ASIC, has selected five regulatory technology (regtech) companies for the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII) to find a solution for the challenges of corporate disclosure.
Announced on Friday, the selected companies are Bedrock AI, DigitalX Limited, Eastern Analytica and Listcorpcand Pyxta. All of them are small-to-medium regtech enterprises (SMEs).
These companies are tasked to help the regulator with analyzing the corporate disclosures and other company datasheets. They will identify and assess compliance by listed companies with a range of requirements, including continuous disclosure, financial reporting obligations and the prohibition against deceptive disclosures as well as security price manipulation.
“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,” Cathie Armour, the Commissioner at ASIC, said.
Adequate Funding
Under the initiative, all five companies will receive a grant of up to AU$100,000 each to conduct a feasibility study for around three months. Then, two of these companies will be shortlisted for the next stage and will be given a further AU$1 million to develop and test a proof of concept over a further 15 months.
ASIC will cooperate and collaborate will all of these companies in all states.
The need for regtech has increased dramatically over the past few years. Both regulators and companies are using this technology to find lapses in compliance requirements.
“Working towards an innovative solution has the potential to transform ASIC’s ability to harness technology to reduce regulatory burdens while enhancing market integrity,” Armour added.
