The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will host a round table in February to discuss opportunities for the financial services sector from regulation technology (regtech).

“We have only just announced this initiative, but already we have 40 expressions of interest to attend, so it is proving to be very popular,” ASIC Commissioner John Price said in Sydney last week.

Mr Price said regtech had enormous potential to help organisations build a compliance culture, identify learning opportunities and save time and money relating to regulation.

ASIC is also working on pilot programs to investigate how regtech firms can complement its work.

Regtech could help improve risk management confidence in areas such as financial advice, and would improve regulator access to data and analytic tools, Mr Price said.

“We will be able to devote more of our resources to being proactive and pre-emptive, rather than reactive.”

Australia was well positioned to reap benefits from financial technology in general, but there were risks for customers and investors, Mr Price warned.

“There will be new channels through which fraud may be perpetrated both within and across borders,” he said.

“The increased use of technology to capture, store and analyse data increases the risks of that data being misused and the systems used to capture and store the data being subject to cyber attacks.”