A  survey of more than 1500 compliance leaders around the world, including 300 in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has revealed major risks associated with digitalisation. Almost half (41%) of those surveyed admitted their organisation has already experienced enforcement investigations by regulators because of technology that was poorly onboarded and/or implemented.

According to this new research, The Currency of Connection: Mobilizing Technology for Compliance Integration, investigations are most likely to arise in relation to data privacy and cybersecurity, as well as tax, transfer pricing, fraud, and antitrust. The research also reveals that compliance teams are largely shut out of decision-making around new tech. A third of businesses surveyed are believed to be employing new technology without any regard for potential compliance and regulatory risk.

The main outcome is that scrutiny of tech-enabled business models and data privacy issues will now be at the top of regulators' 'to-do lists'.

Compliance leaders plan to further adopt machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics for finding and delivering information as part of compliance training and data-backed systems designed to identify concerning patterns of behavior.