Interpreting Regulations with SBVR

The wide and complex spectrum of regulations, especially in the financial services industry, calls for machine assistance in making sense of, and in consuming, regulatory text. This paper describes an approach to interpreting regulations with SBVR. The purpose is to clarify ambiguity in regulations by developing a shared vocabulary and shared guidance based on the regulatory text. The on-going work presented in this paper is part of the Governance, Risk and Compliance Technology Centre’s (Ireland) current research activities that include the development of policy advice on compliance with US Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations for companies that are governed by these regulations. The approach is based on the navigation of US public databases – Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations and US Code – to identify subsets of AML regulation relevant to companies based outside the USA. These subsets are imported into an SBVR toolset, where they are analysed and, if necessary, interpreted by the legal and financial experts on the team. A standardized vocabulary for AML is being developed in SBVR, together with advice on regulatory intent and formal expression of rules with which regulated companies must comply.