Key views on factors FIs prioritise when selecting a third-party RegTech solution:
- The Global State of RegTech surveyed 300 FI decision-makers and 100 vendors on what factors matter most when selecting a third-party RegTech solution
- Ease of integration tops vendor expectations at 50% while security leads FI priorities at 41%, with explainability and auditability showing the closest alignment across both groups
- Vendors overestimate the pull of ROI and regulatory expertise, while they underestimate how much FIs value support and speed of implementation
The Global State of RegTech surveyed 300 FI decision-makers and 100 vendors on what factors matter most when selecting a third-party RegTech solution
The Global State of RegTech was produced by RegTech Analyst and Parker & Lawrence Research.
The study draws on global surveys of 300 senior risk and compliance decision-makers at financial institutions and 100 RegTech vendors, supplemented by qualitative interviews with regulators, regulated entities and market experts.
It incorporates deep-dive analysis across six risk and compliance domains alongside bottom-up market sizing built from 2026 spend data, population modelling and a review of 63 published market estimates.
Among the questions put to both groups was which factors matter most to financial institutions when selecting a third-party RegTech solution.
Ease of integration tops vendor expectations at 50% while security leads FI priorities at 41%, with explainability and auditability showing the closest alignment across both groups
The results reveal a market where buyers and sellers are broadly aligned on the fundamentals but diverge in ways that matter.
Multiple responses were permitted.
Security, resilience and data protection leads for both groups, at 41% among institutions and 47% among vendors, and ease of integration follows closely at 39% and 50% respectively, the highest single figure in the dataset.
While both sit near the top for each group, the gaps between them are more modest than they first appear.
The closest alignment of all sits at the bottom of the chart, with explainability and auditability cited by 17% of institutions and 18% of vendors, and peer case studies at 14% and 10%, suggesting these are areas neither group treats as a primary concern.
From there, the picture becomes more interesting.
Institutions place considerably more weight on customer support and relationship management than vendors anticipate, at 33% against 17%, and on speed of implementation, at 28% versus 17%, pointing to a gap between what vendors think sells and what institutions actually value once a relationship is underway.
Quality and uniqueness of technology or data ranks third among institutions at 35%, though vendors rate it lower at 28%, while vendor reputation and financial stability registers at 26% for institutions and just 15% for vendors.
Industry experience and regulatory expertise produce one of the sharper reversals, cited by only 25% of institutions but 40% of vendors, suggesting that credentials institutions treat as a baseline expectation are being positioned by vendors as a differentiator.
Demonstrated ROI and cost reduction shows the widest gap of all, at 21% among institutions and 42% among vendors.
Configurability sits at 21% and 17%, rounding out the middle of the list.
Vendors overestimate the pull of ROI and regulatory expertise, while they underestimate how much FIs value support and speed of implementation
Two divergences in particular deserve attention.
Vendors rate demonstrated ROI at 42%, more than double the 21% recorded by institutions, which might initially seem surprising given that lack of clear ROI is one of the most frequently cited barriers to RegTech adoption.
The explanation lies in the nature of buying decisions at individual institutions.
Many are sceptical that results achieved elsewhere will translate directly to their own environment, given the idiosyncratic nature of their data, systems and regulatory context.
ROI matters in principle, but generic proof points carry limited weight.
The second notable gap is on industry experience and regulatory expertise, where vendors score 15 percentage points higher than institutions.
Vendors appear to believe this credential is more persuasive than buyers actually find it, which may reflect overconfidence in the value of domain authority relative to what institutions are really looking for.
Across the chart, the clearest message is that trust is hard to earn and rarely follows from standard sales narratives.
Institutions weight security, integration and ongoing support above almost everything else, qualities that speak to reliability and relationship rather than headline capability.
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