The published rules did not say how they were being applied
A research and knowledge services function supported deal teams looking at fintech and insurance businesses across several markets. Those deals are priced on whether a license will be granted or refused, so the teams needed to know how each regulator was reading its own rules. The licensing regimes were published and easy to read. What was not published was which applications had been approved or refused, what was under review, and how comparable cases had been handled.
That kind of knowledge also goes out of date. A report written for one deal would be stale by the next, which made this a problem of keeping a view current rather than a single research request. The function wanted something it could maintain across markets and own itself.
We built a standing board across the markets covered
We assembled an advisory board of former regulators, former compliance officers and former licensing leads, drawn from the markets the deal teams actually worked in. A question about any of those markets could go to somebody who had sat on the relevant side of the process. Members were available between sessions for questions about a single market.
Sessions were called when a regulator moved rather than on a fixed calendar, because that is when the view actually changes. The output was indexed into the firm’s own systems and owned by the knowledge function rather than by any one deal team, so it could be searched later by people who had not been in the room.
Deal teams answer from the archive before they ask the board
Deal teams stopped starting from scratch. A licensing question in a covered market could be answered from the archive first, and put to the board only where the archive was silent. That changed what each answer cost the firm and how much work it took to get.
The board also surfaced regulatory movement before it was published, which matters in markets where a licensing change alters the shape of an opportunity. The firm now maintains the view itself rather than commissioning it again for each deal.
