The rapid influx of regulatory documents and enforcement actions has swamped compliance teams; regtech software like ING’s can restore efficiency. 

ING just spun out and sold its regulatory change-monitoring tool, SparQ, to risk intelligence firm Corlytics.  

SparQ’s software helps identify new regulations or threats, construct robust controls around monitoring and oversight, and ensure appropriate policies are in place. 

The Dutch bank started building the technology in 2017 to help it manage the “increasingly complex regulatory landscape,” and began partnering with Corlytics several years ago. The tools now have 550 users across ING, including in its risk, compliance, finance, regulatory affairs, and legal departments.  

When the platform finds a new, actionable regulatory development, it can also autogenerate a first draft policy for the bank in real-time, “something that can take up to six months using a conventional method,” Corlytics CEO John Byrne told Insights Distilled.  

ING estimates that SparQ has led to around 20% efficiency gains and has bolstered its relationships with regulators by contributing to its “efforts of demonstrating being in control,” ING chief compliance officer Rein Graat said. The bank will continue to use the software and “provide input on functionality and ongoing development” to Corlytics, ING spokesperson Marc Smulders told Distilled.

This is the third tech solution ING has spun out, following Stemly and Pyctor, and only the latest example of a big bank transitioning its homegrown tech for public consumption. For example, Banco Santander is partnering with Google to sell technology it created to help move mainframes to the cloud, while Capital One productized Slingshot, software it originally created to manage its own use of the cloud data tool Snowflake.   

“ING combines corporate innovation and entrepreneurial experience,” Smulders said. The bank creates “minimal viable businesses that are adjacent and disruptive and are ready to scale further,” and then either spins them into existing business units, continues to scale them up at arm’s length, or spins them out into separate companies.