How TeamLease RegTech helping cos meet regulatory compliance on time, save money

Very limited corporates in our country have adopted any technology platform to digitize their compliance management functions. Currently, it is person-dependant and is managed manually using excel spreadsheets. In absence of any technology driven processes, every organisation experience inadvertent delays, manual errors and high cost of compliance.

Sandeep Agrawal, Director & Co-Founder, TeamLeaseRegTech in an exclusive interview with Bizz Buzz, says, “In this age of automation, organisations need to actively pursue digitisation as a key component of their compliance goals. The switch to digital compliance management can help employers create an automated process around compliance management and ensure real-time monitoring and accurate and cost-effective compliances”

What are the benefits of automated processes and how can businesses maximize them?

In India, compliance documents are mainly categorized as applications, registrations, licences, registers, returns, among many others. As of today, most of these compliance documents in the country are still completely manual with little or no digital functionality. From regulator’s perspective, the maximum extent of available digital presence is restricted to the regulator’s website for submission of compliance documents digitally (eliminating the need for manually submissions) with the exception of compliances under the purview of Finance Ministry (wherein an ecosystem for private participation has been created to achieve end-to-end digitalization). From an employer’s perspective, very limited corporates have adopted any technology platform to digitize their compliance management functions. Currently, it is person-dependant and is managed manually using excel spreadsheets. In absence of any technology driven processes, every organization experience inadvertent delays, manual errors and high cost of compliance.

Technology is transforming key business processes by making them faster, easier and cheaper. In this age of automation, organisations need to actively pursue digitisation as a key component of their compliance goals. The switch to digital compliance management can help employers create an automated process around compliance management and ensure real-time monitoring and accurate and cost-effective compliances. Corporates adopt any new technology in a gradual and a step-by-step approach i.e., implementation and stabilisation of individual milestones and then moving on to the next steps. This approach ensures adoption, acceptance and product usage across the organisation. On the similar lines, compliance management platforms can be classified into three broad layers: Tracking layer,record generation layer and filing layer. These classifications also indicate the organisational maturity for adoption of any of these layers in the regtech space.

Over the last decade, companies have invested in technologies with ‘tracking layer’ mainly to create transparency within the organisation and ensure real-time tracking and management of regulatory obligations. This layer helps in monitoring of all regulatory obligations and its status thereby reducing the cost of poor compliance and builds confidence amongst the board members and the shareholders. Tracking layer still does not support companies in ensuring high levels of accuracy and efficiency mainly on account of manual interventions in creating these compliance documents. Although limited but some companies in India have started considering adoption of the ‘record generation layer’ to achieve accuracy and significantly reduce compliance cost.

How does TeamLeaseRegTech specifically support businesses in adopting and utilizing automated processes?

TeamLeaseRegTech (TL RegTech) is amongst the very few regtech companies in India who have been investing heavily on development of all the threelayers of products (tracking layer, record generation layer, and filing layer) in the compliance space.

Tracking Layer

TL RegTech’slegal compliance management platform (AVACOM) offers a comprehensive compliance database covering central, State and local laws with over 1,500 acts and 69,000 compliances. The platform is available on web and mobile apps with high security standards and provides rich dashboards and flexible / analytical reporting capabilities along with online chat facilities for support. Additionally, it helps in creating layer of accountability with mandatory review mechanism and facilitates central repository of all compliance documents with easy extraction utilities. TL RegTech also ensures sharing of regulatory updates almost on a real-time basis (mostly within 48 hours of its publication). This is managed via an in-housed developed tech utility which routinely combs through over 2,500 regulatory websites and identifies a new notification.

Record Generation Layer

Over the past five years, TL RegTech has developed automation layers for data processing and automated preparation of statutory records for labour and secretarial compliances (like labour registers and returns, board meeting related compliance documents i.e., e-forms and other documentation like notices, agendas, minutes, resolutions, etc.) The company has also been working on automation layers for SEBI compliances (XBRL filings and disclosures). With automation layers for these three regulators, the integrated platform can help companies automate the statutory record generation for over 45 per cent of the total compliance obligations.

Additionally, the labour compliance automation platform has been integrated with transaction system (like payroll software) to eliminate any manual intervention and ensure automatic generation of statutory registers and returns covering over 25 States in India.

What industries can benefit the most from the use of TeamLeaseRegTech's automated processes?

India is witnessing surge in companies, across multiple industries and sectors, who are adopting digital platforms for compliance functions. Currently, over 1500 legal entities spread across 45 industries are utilizing automation layers offered by TL RegTech.

Some sectors that have benefited the most includes agriculture, auto and auto ancillaries, chemical and fertilizers, banking and financial services, healthcare, retail, logistics and warehousing, food and beverages, metal and mining, ship building, energy, and infrastructure among many others.

How does TeamLeaseRegTech address concerns about the security and reliability of automated processes?

TL RegTech has a large 50+ member in-house team of technology professionals which includes experts in infrastructure and security. The company has adopted best practices in technology to ensure security and availability. The company has implemented Business Continuity Plans (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plans (DRP) and have ensured that all the platforms are completely encrypted (covering data in rest and data in motion with AES 256 bit symmetric encryption). A lot of other activities are done internally to manage security on a day-to-day basis like network infrastructure designs to manage DDOS attacks, implementation of web application firewalls, etc.Additionally, the platforms are periodically reviewed by third party security experts (like CERT-IN certified firms) and the company has also obtained global IT Security certification (SOC II).

What future developments doesTeamLeaseRegTech have planned for their automated processes?

The company has envisioned to offer end-to-end digitization for over 70 per cent of the total compliance obligations for a company operating in India covering all the three layers. The company will be focusing on two major activities for the next five years: (1) Development of automation layers for compliances under environment, health and safety laws (EHS), SEBI regulations, RBI regulations, etc. (2) Take lead and support the regulators in implementation of ‘API based straight through filings’ for the above regulations to facilitate end-to-end digitization of compliances for both corporates and regulators.

The company has already made applications to Labour Ministry and Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) for allowing API-based filings wherein private RegTech players can be empanelled with the regulators so that they can integrate their systems with regulatory platforms and promote automated filings (in line with the model adopted by GST).