Whitepaper - Push vs Pull: The future of data collection

Could the financial industry move to a more regulator-led pull-based system? Would it make sense, what implications would it have and what would the new requirements for that pull system look like?

The past decades have seen an extraordinary acceleration and innovation in information exchange systems due to the rise of the internet and exponential development of hardware and software systems. Hence, more data than ever is being created and captured within the financial system, which comes hand in hand with higher expectations of data quality from regulators.

Traditionally, supervised firms have "pushed" data to their supervisors, by sending a pre-defined, aggregated report on a periodic (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc.) basis that can be processed and analysed. However, since the 2008 financial crisis and the wave of new regulations that followed, regulators and firms are faced with challenges around data management, resourcing, quality and timing.

Could the financial industry move to a more regulator-led pull-based system? Would it make sense, what implications would it have and what would the new requirements for that pull system look like? At first glance, this seems like an approach more aligned with the supervisory objectives, that would significantly reduce reporting costs for firms and effort in interpreting new reporting instructions.

Taking a deeper dive into this topic, however, reveals more nuance and complexity. Regulatory reporting, it turns out, is a lot more complicated than paying your electricity bill.

Download the paper here