Why real-time regulatory data is vital for compliance
The speed and complexity of regulatory change has become one of the most significant operational challenges facing financial institutions today.
Organisations are expected to maintain complete, accurate and up-to-date obligations data across their governance, risk and compliance (GRC) frameworks, yet the volume of global regulatory updates continues to surge, claims AscentAI.
When front-office teams rely on outdated or incomplete information, firms risk widening exposure at a time when regulators are becoming more assertive in their enforcement activity.
Staying on top of global change is no small task. Thomson Reuters estimated that in 2022 there were 234 regulatory alerts issued each day across 1,374 regulators in 190 countries. Meanwhile, the financial impact of falling behind is growing. In 2024 alone, US regulators handed out $4.6bn in fines, representing 95% of global penalties. According to the XLoD 2025 survey of G-SIB and D-SIB institutions, 55% expect a similar level of fines in the year ahead, with a further 17% anticipating an even more punitive environment.
The survey also sheds light on why the industry continues to struggle. Seventy per cent of respondents said poor data quality and completeness remain major obstacles to building effective control frameworks. A further 72% identified technology limitations within first-line teams as a core barrier to implementing regulatory change at the pace required. With so much information changing so frequently, manual processes and traditional review cycles are proving unsustainable for large, complex organisations.
Delays in processing updates create avoidable gaps. Many firms still operate policy review cadences of six to 12 months, leaving long periods where crucial changes go unnoticed. Procedural reviews often run on 12- to 24-month cycles, compounding the risk. Off-cycle reviews triggered only by audits or incidents do little to address the continuous flow of obligations that impact day-to-day operations.
Some firms have attempted to bridge the gap using general-purpose AI tools, but these systems come with significant limitations. A BBC analysis of AI-generated news summaries found that 51% of answers had significant issues, including factual inaccuracies in 19% of responses and altered or invented quotes in 13% of cases. When applied to compliance, this type of inaccuracy introduces unacceptable downstream risk. Large language models are trained on vast bodies of unrelated information, and that noise can distort the interpretation of regulatory text.
Even major AI developers recognise the shortfalls. Entrepreneur magazine reported that OpenAI has assembled a team of more than 100 former investment bankers from firms including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to train its AI models for financial tasks. Yet specialist solutions already exist. AscentAI, for example, uses a purpose-built model trained exclusively on regulatory content and labelled by financial compliance subject matter experts, ensuring the system understands and classifies obligations with precision.
To keep risk levels in check, organisations need obligations data that reflects the most current regulatory reality—not information that is months out of date. Continuous monitoring can significantly reduce mean time to discovery and implementation by ensuring firms identify changes as they occur. Full lifecycle tracking across new, amended and retired obligations helps organisations meet effective dates without scrambling at the last minute. Real-time alerts direct updates to the correct obligation owners, while accurate mapping helps firms align regulatory requirements to risk taxonomies, processes, entities and products.
Accurate and timely obligations data underpins every part of the compliance function. With the pace of change rising and the cost of failure climbing, manual approaches and generic AI tools carry too much risk. Purpose-built platforms such as AscentAI offer a path to faster, more reliable and more scalable compliance—ensuring organisations can make informed decisions based on obligations that are genuinely up to date.
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