Mapping the regulatory landscape
(Limited dataset - Maps viewable on desktop only)
This analysis uses financial regulation as an example of how narrative analytics can quantify, contextualize and monitor risk information. The same approach can support risk, legal, compliance and regulatory functions across sectors where understanding emerging themes, supervisory priorities and stakeholder discourse is critical.
The data consists of 1,921 texts drawn from regulatory publications, consultations, enforcement actions, speeches and policy updates, via HSF Kramer's weekly financial services regulatory updates*. Every text is mapped via narrative analytics, providing a wide-angle view of regulation in financial services from 2018 to 2020 across regions/countries.
Each dot on the below map represents a full paragraph within a regulatory update. After giving the map a few seconds to load, hover your cursor over the dots to read the underlying update (note - for readability we have truncated the texts that run longer than a few sentences.)
Now move the slider at the bottom right to see how 19 specific regulatory issues and actions fall within the 5 high-level themes.
Emphasis by region - by the numbers
The chart below shows how the updates for each high level theme break out by selected region/country, with the data showing:
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53% of European regulatory updates were focused on implementation of major regulatory frameworks and systemic reforms (e.g., Basel III)
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47% of UK updates were focused on adaption in market context, as regulators acted to ensure continuity amidst Brexit
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US regulators: 37% of updates were enforcement related - much of this reflecting reduced enforcement intensity. Consistent with this, another 29% was focused on on the industry lens, reflecting increased emphasis on market efficiency and regulatory recalibration
Shifts in the US regulatory approach between 2018 and 2020
The time series graphs below are based on the 19-level clusters in the map above, showing specifically how the US regulatory posture has shifted between 2018 and 2020. Reflecting a shift in priorities, the updates show a sharp increase in regulation amendments and exceptions, as well as a market focused view in policy speeches. Combined, these two narratives grew from 10% of all US updates in 2018, growing to 23% in 2020
Over the same period of time, enforcement related narratives dropped. Together, Violations/fraud and Oversight & hearings comprised over 20% of all updates in 2018. By 2020, they dropped to a combined 10.7% of updates
How is this valuable and actionable for professionals scanning the regulatory landscape?
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Accelerated identification of emerging risks and supervisory priorities, vs subjective or manual screening
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Higher reliability/specificity vs GenAI approaches which may omit outliers, or which may return generic responses with large datasets
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Supports source traceability and contextual transparency because all updates can be seen in context of the wider picture - via content accessed directly via the narrative map
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Focus on signal vs noise: Narrative themes can be modelled against outcomes then tracked over time, to enable focused attention on the themes known to correlate with regulatory impact.
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Both wide and narrow: Multiple sources can be mapped together to scan for wide-angle overlaps (e.g. stakeholder, regulator, customer, industry and public discourse); Conversely, subset maps can be made from parts of the map for detailed understanding of what is driving a specific issue of interest.
*Source: https://www.hsfkramer.com/notes/fsrandcorpcrime/fsr-weekly-updates