Samantha Clarke, chief executive officer of tech start-up, Advice RegTech, has taken out this year’s Innovator of the Year Award at the 2018 Money Management Women in Financial Services Awards.
Clarke, who described her role as “all-encompassing, immensely satisfying, extremely engaging and constantly challenging”, is both the founder and CEO of Advice RegTech, which she branded a regulatory technology consulting and software solutions firm.
“We specialise in supporting organisations’ efforts to restore consumer confidence in financial services and put customers at the centre of what they do,” she said.
Advice RegTech intends to keep advisers up to date by supporting the regulatory compliance reviews of financial advice with best interest duty to consumers and supports the financial literacy of consumers by providing product disclosure.
Clarke said the innovation was borne out of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s reviews, as well as what was highlighted in the Royal Commission, which showed there was clearly a problem.
“To help the industry, both financial planners and consumers, we need to solve the big issues raised by the Royal Commission, and regulatory compliance is the big one.”
Clarke’s roots lie in product development, eCommerce and consulting, which she said provided her with foresight into the reforms that would require significant change in the industry.
“I saw that technology, in particular, regulatory technology, was the only way that the industry could deliver on the deadlines and improve the effectiveness and efficiency that the new reforms would require.”
Clarke said that now it was about coming back to her roots to solve these issues through product design and technology design but gathers established organisations will prove a hurdle.
“Large Australian organisations would be better served to more quickly adopt innovation into their firms if they faster engaged with proof of concepts. That would help innovation blossom in Australia and help the innovation ecosystem as well as the Australian corporates.”
Clarke said the next five to 10 years in the industry would see a greater convergence between the digital and human engagement of customers with financial services products and advice, and Advice RegTech should hit the global mainstream.
