56% of the finical institutions which participated in the Accenture 2015 Global Structural Reform Study, including banks, insurers and capital markets firms, are expecting to invest at least $200 million on projects which will overhaul how they do business, in order to comply with the global structural reform legislation. Nearly a third expect to spend over double that amount, $500 million, over the course of the year.

The new regulations were introduced to re-shape financial services institutions and make them more resilient following the issues they faced during the financial crisis of 2007-2008.

Steve Culp, Senior Global Managing Director for Accenture Finance and Risk Services, emphasised the vast scale of these reformsand the impact they will have on the industry.

‘Over the past five years, many firms have struggled to keep pace with the multitude of regulatory, conduct and compliance related issues. Their responses have been fragmented and they have made significant investments in people, process and tools to remediate.

Looking ahead, the financial services landscape will continue to be re-written, given the cumulative impact of global structural reform, especially for internationally active banks and insurers. Those with a clear and connected global implementation plan in place will be best positioned to get the most from their investments.’

The financial industry as a whole is confident that they are prepared for the reforms, with 60% of the survey’s participants stating that they are ‘well prepared’ and a further 35% claiming to be ‘extremely well prepared’ to become compliant with the changing structural regulations.

Samantha Regan, a Managing Director in Accenture Finance and Risk Services and the lead of the Regulation and Compliance practice, was keen to highlight the importance of taking the reforms seriously but also using attitude to bring about a positive outcome to the situation.

‘Financial institutions cannot afford to adopt a wait-and-see approach in their response to the challenges presented by GSR. They need to tackle structural reform with the same bold, strategic thinking that they are using for other industry challenges. First movers can potentially turn this challenge into a competitive advantage with clients and customers drawn to firms with clear business strategies.’