Five financial institutions know how much misconduct costs like no other. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, RBS, and Lloyds Banking Group altogether paid close to $200 billion in fines in a four-year period of 2012-2016. In the same period, the cost of misconduct for 20 largest global banks hit $359 billion, signifying a 32% growth over the same cost in the period of 2008-2012.

Over the course of decades of operations and fine payouts, it became obvious that existing compliance practices cannot effectively dodge the bullet, no matter how much is invested in the legal/compliance departments. In fact, on average, financial institutions have 10–15% of their staff dedicated to compliance, but billions are still paid for missteps. Globally, around $80 billion is spent on governance, risk & compliance, and the market is only expected to grow, reaching $120 billion in the next four years.

Over time, the regulatory environments get even more complex –