Top 4 RegTech companies disrupting the European market

By Megha Bhattacharya

RegTech is the management of regulatory processes within the financial industry through technology. The main functions of RegTech include regulatory monitoring, reporting, and compliance.

Europe is home to about 140 RegTech startups- 30% of those startups specialize in compliance management, 27% focus on know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) automation, and 26% leverage technology and data to provide risk management tools, according to a data provided by XAnge, a Franco-German venture capital firm.

Here are the top RegTech firms in the European market –

• Fenergo

Irish FinTech Fenergo is a provider of client onboarding lifecycle management software for corporate, investment and private banks. The RegTech’s onboarding technologies spans front and middle office operations with an aim to provide banking clients with an end-to-end client lifecycle management solution that includes compliance and banking process management such as onboarding compliance, legal entity data management, product onboarding, collateral management, client servicing, and credit mitigants and collateral management.

Abu Dhabi-based Anglo-Gulf Trade Bank (AGTB), a digital trade finance bank, chose Fenergo to deploy its CLM platform. Fenergo will enable AGTB to meet its strategic objective to disrupt the trade finance market with a cloud-based, digital-first and client-centric model leveraging emerging technologies such as data analytics and API connectivity. With the ability to assess and mitigate risk more effectively utilising Fenergo’s CLM solutions, AGTB can deliver a more integrated, real-time offering to its clients.

The Dublin-headquartered RegTech has also launched Fenergo KYC & Onboarding for Salesforce on Salesforce AppExchange. The development is expected to provide customers with ways to deliver automated straight through client journeys while satisfying Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulatory requirements.

• ComplyAdvantage

London headquartered ComplyAdvantage is a RegTech company that leverages uses AI and ML to help firms manage compliance obligations. The company provides data intelligence to help firms understand the risk of who they’re doing business with while automating compliance and risk processes.

Recently, ComplyAdvantage announced a $20 million investment by the Growth Equity team in Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The investment is an extension to the company’s oversubscribed Series C funding announced in July 2020. Goldman Sachs Asset Management joins a growing list of the company’s investors including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital.

Founded in 2014 ComplyAdvantage works with over 500 enterprise clients across 75 countries, including Earthport, a publicly-listed payments company, Azimo, an international money transfer services provider, and Lemon Way, a pan-European payments institution. The company is backed by notable investors including Index Ventures and Balderton Capital, and has four global hubs in London, New York, Cluj-Napoca and Singapore.

• Onfido

Founded in 2012, Onfido is a software company that helps businesses verify people’s identities using a photo-based identity document, a selfie and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

RegTech Onfido provides identity verification through its online platform. The company uses manual and automated machine learning (ML) technologies, including optical character recognition and face detection, to compare and cross-reference a person’s facial biometrics with their identity document to prevent fraud.

Recently, Onfido announced Onfido Face Authenticate, adding a seamless biometric face authenticator as well as new security tools, including Onfido Private Key Encryption, to its Real Identity Platform. The company said that the new product suite provides businesses with the high levels of assurance they need to prove their customers are who they say they are in a remote setting without compromising user experience or privacy.

Onfido powers over 1,500 FinTech, banking and marketplace clients globally, including Revolut, Remitly, and Bitstamp.

• NetGuardians

Established in 2007, NetGuardians is a Swiss RegTech startup that has developed an AI solution for banks to proactively prevent fraud. NetGuardians’ fraud-mitigation software uses the latest technology, including ML, big data, and user-behavior analytics to prevent fraud in real time across a number of banking areas. The software monitors all activities and transactions and raise an alert for any suspicious activity.

Recently, the Swiss FinTech announced a partnership with PwC Singapore to fight fraud. With the new partnership between NetGuardians and PwC Singapore, Banks in Singapore will be able to benefit from the protection offered by NetGuardians’ technology in combination with PwC Singapore’s fraud advisory and technology implementation services.

NetGuardians serves over 50 Tier 1 to Tier 3 banks worldwide, including Aargauische Kantonalbank, HFC Bank Ghana, and Acleda Bank. Besides Switzerland, the company has offices in Poland, Kenya and Singapore.