Jean Kizito is a partner in the tax department and co-head of the Japan desk at KPMG Luxembourg. Photo: Provided by KPMG

Jean Kizito is a partner in the tax department and co-head of the Japan desk at KPMG Luxembourg. Photo: Provided by KPMG

Ahead of the 30th edition of the Regtech Convention, held on 21-22 November, Delano caught up with KPMG Luxembourg’s Jean Kizito to hear more about the topics that will be discussed at the conference and trends in the regulatory technology space.

The Regtech convention on financial regulation and regulatory technology brings together regulators, industry experts and players from financial institutions. What would you say is the goal of the conference, and what will your talk (or panel) focus on?

Jean Kizito: The Regtech Convention is organised and hosted by Regnology (formally BearingPoint). This will be the 30th edition of the event, which focuses on financial regulation and regulatory technology. The conference allows us to meet and exchange with regulators, representatives from supranational and local supervisory bodies, regulated financial services institutions, and of course, industry experts. I am happy to not only attend the event but also share some insights on the ever-evolving tax and regulatory landscape.

There will be many important and interesting topics discussed at the convention, and I will also be speaking in three taxation panels on the second day of the event. The first panel focuses on tax reporting, where I will discuss tax transparency (i.e., Fatca/CRS) and cryptoassets. I then speak on the second panel about QI reporting challenges for the 2023 tax year, and lastly, I will speak during a fascinating panel on the Faster Directive.

Looking ahead to 2024, what do you consider to be the most important trends in regulatory technology?

Regulatory and compliance obligations--for banks, asset managers and insurance companies--are clearly increasing. An area of the tax field where banks and investment managers can plainly benefit from technology is operational tax compliance. Compliance officers and tax practitioners could rely on regulatory technologies (”regtechs”) which: (1) enable financial institutions to deal with a large set of data (quantitative regtechs), (2) are used to--for instance--improve or redefine due diligence processes (process centric regtechs) or (3) identify new regulations and monitoring changes (pure regulatory regtechs).

In the past, it has been mostly large banking institutions that have adopted IT solutions that can handle a huge volume of transactions to meet their local or international tax compliance challenges. Now, however, tax authorities are expecting any organisation--regardless of size and number of transactions--to adopt, for example, electronic filing. Digitalisation is unquestionably creating new opportunities and challenges for the banking and investment management sectors.

In terms of regtech trends for 2024, the financial industry has not yet reaped the full benefits of big data, cloud computing, or machine learning algorithms, so we are certainly but slowly heading there.

What are you most interested in/excited to hear about during the convention?

I am interested to take the pulse of the industry. Getting to hear what clients’ concerns and priorities are for the moment as they navigate the regulatory landscape. As this field is constantly evolving it’s crucial to grab valuable and up-to-date information within this field.

Part of the fun of conferences is learning that you’re interested in something that you didn’t know you were interested in. So I am curious to let myself be surprised by trend-setters who’ll share a different view on the industry.

The 30th Regtech Convention is taking place on 21-22 November. Find more information on the agenda .

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