Against a backcloth of growing digitalisation and increasingly tough regulations in the financial sector, a few pioneering companies are already surfing on the RegTech wave. Similar to FinTechs, InsurTechs or FundTech, these technologies are currently revolutionising the compliance & risk processes, with the ultimate aim of contributing new added value to companies onboarding the RegTech train. This is true of OneLife, a Luxembourg life insurance company and of the Luxembourg startup KYCTech. We met with Marc Stevens, CEO of OneLife, Thierry André and Luc Maquil, co-founders of KYCTech, to review a collaboration rich in innovation.

“This integration of RegTech is part of the digitalisation process that we started almost two years ago now” comments Marc Stevens, before going on to say: “For the time being we have chosen to focus on two very specific axes regarding RegTech: the integration of KYC/AML filtering for new business and the KYC/AML check for legal entities”. The CSSF and CAA’s latest regulations also impose new mandatory checks when accepting clients. RegTech has become a virtual necessity for digital pioneers such as the Luxembourg life insurer. The OneLife and KYCTech teams agree in saying that this partnership was completely natural, given that the Luxembourg startup positions itself as a facilitator enabling the regulations to be simplified by adopting its technologies to better meets its requirements. “Digitalised compliance & risk now clearly contributes to the business and its added value is undeniable” stresses Thierry André.

“Digitalised compliance & risk now clearly contributes to the business and its added value is undeniable”

A unique collaboration

Numerous exchanges and working meetings initiated at the end of 2016 have enabled the Compliance & Risk, Commercial, IT & Digital and Customer Service teams to be integrated from the start of the process. “We thus opted for a genuine partnership, in an “agile mode” by composing a working party including staff representing every department and stakeholder in order to ensure the project’s success” explains Luc Maquil. Marc Stevens underlined, for his part, the importance of the workshops which were chaired by KYCTech and which enabled a medium-term vision to be given and, above all, current practices to be challenged with the aim of optimising the processes, their digitalisation but also the creation of added value. “Such solutions aim to free up significant time for the Compliance & Risk teams, but also Customer Service, not to mention the speed of reaction and service that this engenders” the CEO of OneLife stresses.

RegTech, a genuine facilitator

“API analyses the data and gives a signal – green, amber or orange – before redirecting, if necessary, to the compliance department or requesting further details” Thierry André and Luc Maquil explain. This process thus enables a report to be generated before integrating it into the customer file, in 10 seconds. An employee may spend considerable time checking this information which is crucial to establish new life insurance policies. This manual task can be automated and free up time for a more detailed focus on the real AML/KYC issues. In addition to the rolling out of a Proof of Concept in the months of April and May 2017, it’s an entire integration programme which has been set out and approved for delivery followed by integration in mid-September. “Perfect timing in line with the finalisation of several other projects around the terminal phase of our digitalisation process” adds Marc Stevens. At OneLife, the arrival of these numerous projects and new digital tools clearly aims to enhance our staff’s skills to improve the added value and thus better meet our partners’ and clients’ requirements.

 With such solutions OneLife is equipped to face the increase in the level of regulation and reinforce the tailor-made side of its business, marking it out from its competitors. Furthermore, with this rapprochement the two Luxembourg payers are proving that the RegTech dynamic is well under way in the Grand Duchy and that the country is once again at the cutting edge of the digital world, as was wished for by the government and its Digital Lëtzebuerg initiative.

OneLife and KYCTech will present, inter alia, the advances made in this project at “ICT Spring” to be held on 9 and 10 May of this year, before announcing new innovations in an insurance sector far removed from the traditional label all too often still pinned on it.

Find out more about the stages of OneLife’s digitalisation: 

>>> OneLife activates its digital transformation on basis of new app developed with Ainos

>>> OneLife & Talkwalker: Using Social Media Intelligence At Its Best 

>>> OneLife’s ambition? To make digital a business enabler.

Article of Alexandre Kielmann, initially published on 2017/04/21 – Beast Magazine