What Is RegTech?
The field that automates regulatory compliance with software: what it covers, what it does not, and which obligations it maps to in Türkiye.
RegTech (regulatory technology) is the name for the field that uses software to automate, accelerate and make provable the work of regulatory compliance. The term spread after the 2008 financial crisis, as regulatory volume and the cost of complying with it rose together.
At the centre of the definition is a single idea: compliance does not scale when it is left to human attention. As the number of rules grows, the answer is to automate the process rather than to grow the team.
What RegTech covers
| Area | What it does |
|---|---|
| Regulatory tracking and change management | Detects a new rule, assesses its impact, connects it to an action |
| Customer due diligence and anti-money-laundering | Identity verification, transaction monitoring, suspicious activity detection |
| Regulatory reporting | Assembling and validating reports that go to an authority |
| Risk and control management | Control library, assessment, evidence collection |
| Data protection compliance | Processing inventory and obligation tracking for personal data |
QRegu works on regulatory tracking and change management and on compliance assessment and evidence. Transaction monitoring and submitting reports to an authority are outside its scope.
Which obligations it maps to in Türkiye
RegTech is not an abstract category; it corresponds to concrete expectations from concrete supervisors. In Türkiye that means BDDK in banking, SPK and KAP in capital markets, MASAK for anti-money-laundering, TCMB for monetary policy and payments, KVKK for personal data and GİB for tax. Each is a separate source with its own publication rhythm, and an organisation is usually subject to several at once.
For organisations operating internationally the picture widens: FCA and PRA in the United Kingdom, OCC, SEC and FINRA in the United States, EIOPA and GDPR in Europe all become sources that have to be watched in parallel.
RegTech and FinTech
FinTech rebuilds the financial service itself: payments, credit, investment. RegTech builds the work of showing that the service is run according to the rules. The two are often confused because they operate in the same sector, but their users differ: FinTech serves the end customer, RegTech serves compliance, legal, internal control and risk teams.
What not to expect
RegTech does not give legal advice. Whether a rule binds you, how it should be read and which exemption applies are legal judgements; software prepares that decision, it does not replace it. Nor is compliance responsibility transferable: automation gathers the evidence, the responsibility stays with the organisation.
The realistic expectation is this: detection, filtering, prioritisation and follow-up become automatic; interpretation and judgement stay human. The platform overview walks through that division step by step.