With so many RegTech solutions available in the market it is easy for solutions to get lost in the noise. When trying to reach new clients, the power of word of mouth cannot be understated.
RegTech Analyst and Parker & Lawrence Research recently collaborated on a new industry report, ‘The Global State of RegTech 2026’, offering a comprehensive assessment of the global RegTech market to date.
The report brings together survey responses from 300 senior compliance decision-makers at financial institutions, contributions from 100 RegTech vendors, qualitative interviews with regulators and market experts, and bottom-up market analysis to provide a detailed view of how the sector is evolving.
One of the areas the report examines is vendor discovery and selection, identifying the most common ways firms identify new solutions in the market and the factors that impact whether they onboar the tool.
The RegTech sector is booming. In 2025 over $5bn was raised by RegTech vendors across 216 deals. This is just a snapshot of all the solutions available in the market today. With so much choice it is easy to be overwhelmed by the prospect of researching the market to identify the right solution, often feeling like finding the needle in the haystack.
Buyers do not have the time to compare the tens, or sometimes hundreds, of relevant vendors. As such, it comes as no surprise that 53% of respondents to the survey said they discover new solutions from peer recommendations and word of mouth. Focusing on the UK and Europe this rose to 58% of respondents.
The second and third most common ways to discover new vendors were industry conferences (48%) and industry research reports (43%). Firms in the MENA region seem to have a different approach in how they uncover new vendors with 55% highlighting industry conferences as the most common route. The second most common discovery channel was through deliberate online research, with 50% of respondents from MENA selecting this approach. This is a stark difference to the global percentage of just 37%.
Sitting at the bottom of the global list were direct outreach from vendors (17%) and regulator-led initiatives (11%).
Finding vendors is only half the battle. Institutions will have a handful of non-negotiables that will impact who they work with.
Both vendors and institutions in the survey were aligned on what was at the top of the criteria lists. Security, resilience and data protection was considered an important factor for 41% of institutions and 47% of vendors. It was followed by ease of integration for 39% of institutions and 50% of vendors.
However, there were other areas they did not see eye to eye. Institutions identified customer support (33%), speed of implementation (28%) and vendor reputation (26%) as key factors, compared to vendors where only between 15% and 17% identified these as key factors.
On the reverse, 40% of vendors identified industry expertise as a key criterion, compared to just 25% of institutions, and 42% of vendors noted the importance of ROI, compared to 21% of institutions.
For more insights into the RegTech sector, read the full report here.
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