Test Driven Regulation.

What is Test Driven Regulation?

Test Driven Regulation is an approach where regulatory experts from banks , regulators and vendors collaborate to define openly available test suites for regulatory calculations.

Such test suites contain links to the regulatory text that they are testing.

Banks have the legal responsibility for the calculated numbers that they report to regulators (regardless of who wrote the technical calculations). This means that the testing of regulatory calculations is a task that banks always need to do when regulations and their technical implementations change (which is constantly). Currently each bank does this expensive task separately, creating a huge duplication of effort.

Software vendors can benefit greatly being involved in such collaboration, gaining agreement from users up front on the correct implementation of regulatory calculations.

Regulators can provide clarity on the correct interpretation of regulatory rules by being involved in the collaboration

The Rise of Standard Regulatory Data Models?

Many regulators now are looking at the use of standard open regulatory datamodels as a way to reduce the burdens of reg reporting on banks.

Open, standard data models, allow the for test driven regulation, and tools for test driven regulation, where domain experts can create test data and expected results for different scenarios, and software vendors can use these standards as the base for calculations.

New Rulebook Standards

Many regulators are investigating how rulebooks can be described in ways that enable easier digital interaction.

As the representation of rules change, the general goal of calculations will likely remain the same, particularly those that are already entrenched in a banks management and risk reporting.

Test driven regulation supports the transition of the description of regulatory rules to new formats, in a safe manner.