MAS regulatory reporting deadline, October 2021: Get compliant, fast

The final phase of MAS regulatory reporting for OTC derivatives goes live in October 2021, a year later than originally scheduled, due to the pandemic.

The new MAS reporting requirements mean that insurers, subsidiaries, and other financial market licensees need to report on further asset classes, including equities, commodities, and FX derivatives. Whilst banks and others who are already reporting to MAS on these asset classes may need to make some changes to their processes as a result of additional firms being in scope, the bigger challenge is faced by institutions who are reporting on these products for the first time. Ultimately this means a higher volume of reporting activity, and, therefore, a higher volume of exceptions and errors.

The problem is that a turbulent and difficult business environment throughout 2021 will likely leave firms with little spare time or resources for new regulatory reporting additions. Even the understanding and implementation of new rules can be time consuming and expensive, let alone dealing with the issues and exceptions that arise.

With more trades in scope, even a low percentage rate of errors has the potential to cost businesses money. For firms now faced with new MAS reporting requirements, the challenge lies in meeting these efficiently and effectively. One method is to treat MAS regulatory reporting not as a stand-alone project, but as part of a wider strategic change to simplify regulatory reporting across jurisdictions, freeing up resources for competitive front office innovation that adds value.

Following the financial crisis, firms scrambled together their own solutions for regulatory reporting requirements, but now we live in a world where RegTech vendors with the expertise to ensure that regulatory reporting, and the associated data, is efficient, timely, and accurate, are available to take the strain.  With regulators continuing to introduce new requirements, working with partners who can support your reporting across multiple jurisdictions and regimes is certain to deliver operational efficiency savings.

Firms should therefore see the MAS regulatory reporting deadline as an opportunity to make their processes as efficient as possible, eliminating duplication of effort and complexity and minimising the resources consumed by manual tasks. This will not only ease their MAS compliance efforts, but also future regulatory reporting challenges to come.

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