The recent blog by the World Economic Forum "How better data practices are shaping the next phase of financial supervision" highlights a shift that many in the regulatory and financial services space are beginning to recognise: the future of effective supervision is not just digital it is structured.
At TSO, this is something we see first-hand. As organisations grapple with increasing volumes of regulation, greater complexity and rising expectations around speed and transparency, the limitations of traditional, document-based approaches are becoming more apparent.
Regulation that exists purely as static text, PDFs, documents, fragmented sources was never designed for the pace and demands of today’s environment. And while digital access has improved availability, it hasn’t fundamentally changed how regulation is understood, interpreted or applied.
That is now beginning to change, at pace.
From publishing regulation to operationalising it
One of the most significant shifts underway is the move from publishing regulation to operationalising it.
Traditionally, regulatory publishing has focused on:
-accuracy
-accessibility
-version control.
All essential but increasingly insufficient on their own.
Today, regulators and regulated firms need more than access to information. They need:
-clarity of meaning
-consistency of interpretation
-the ability to respond quickly to change.
This requires a different approach - one where regulation is structured, modelled and made machine-readable from the outset.
What this looks like in practice
Our work with the Bank of Mauritius, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, provides a clear example of this shift delivered in practice.
In this case, the objective was not simply to digitise regulation, but to transform it into a structured format that could be more easily understood, applied and maintained.
By moving away from static formats and towards machine-readable regulation, several benefits emerged:
-Improved clarity: Regulatory requirements became easier to navigate and interpret, reducing ambiguity for users.
-Reduced compliance burden: Firms spent less time interpreting requirements and more time implementing them.
-Greater agility: Updates to regulation could be made more efficiently, supporting a more responsive regulatory environment.
-Foundations for supervisory technology (SupTech): Structured data enabled more effective supervisory tools and approaches.
This is an important distinction. The value does not come from digitisation alone it comes from how regulation is structured and used.
Why data structure matters more than ever
The World Economic Forum article highlights the growing role of AI and automation in financial supervision.
Our experience shows that the effectiveness of these approaches is closely linked to how well the underlying regulatory data is structured and maintained.
If regulation remains unstructured, inconsistent or difficult to interpret then introducing advanced tools will do little to improve outcomes and may even amplify existing challenges.
By contrast, when regulation is structured, consistent and machine-readable it becomes possible to:
-automate interpretation
-improve compliance processes
-enhance supervisory oversight.
In this sense, structured regulation is not just an enabler of innovation - it is a prerequisite.
A broader shift in how organisations think about information
While this discussion is framed in the context of financial regulation, the implications are much wider.
Across sectors, organisations are recognising that the way information is created and managed directly impacts how effectively it can be used.
The move towards structured content, standardised data models and machine-readable formats is part of a broader shift:
-from static to dynamic information
-from documents to data
-from access to usability
For regulators, this enables more effective oversight. For organisations, it enables faster, more confident decision-making.
Looking ahead
The transition to structured, machine-readable regulation is still evolving, but the direction is clear.
As regulatory environments continue to grow in complexity, the ability to structure information effectively, maintain consistency and enable interoperability will become increasingly important.
At TSO, we see this as a natural progression in the role of regulatory publishing, from providing access to trusted information to enabling that information to be applied more effectively in practice.
The work highlighted by the World Economic Forum is one example of how this can be achieved today. The opportunity now is to build on this foundation and apply these approaches more widely across increasingly complex regulatory environments.
Blog post written by Alan Blanchard, TSO Business Development Director.
