Financial institutions have spent years managing regulatory reporting through multiple frameworks, templates and submission processes. The same underlying information may be requested for different purposes, creating duplication across data preparation, validation and reporting.

ESMA’s work towards a “report once” approach signals a potentially important shift in this model.

The principle points towards greater consistency in how regulatory data is collected and reused across reporting obligations. If implemented effectively, it could reduce duplication and improve the efficiency of regulatory reporting for both institutions and supervisors.

But submission-level simplification requires considerable work underneath.

The Data Architecture Behind Simplification

Reusing regulatory data depends on consistency. Definitions need to align. Data lineage must be clear. Information must be sufficiently granular and reliable to serve different regulatory purposes. Governance must also establish who owns the data and how changes are controlled.

For institutions operating with separate reporting processes and fragmented data sources, this can be challenging.

A “report once” direction therefore reinforces the importance of moving towards regulatory data architectures that support multiple requirements from consistent underlying information.

From Template-Based Reporting to Data-Based Reporting

Historically, many regulatory reporting processes have been organised around individual returns. Teams identify the requirement, gather the relevant information, populate the required templates, validate the output and submit.

As supervisory reporting becomes increasingly data-driven, that model is evolving.

The focus is gradually shifting towards the quality, structure and traceability of the underlying regulatory data. This creates an opportunity for institutions to reduce duplication internally while strengthening consistency across submissions.

Governance Becomes Critical

Greater reuse of regulatory data also raises the importance of governance. When the same information supports several obligations, an error can affect multiple outputs. Institutions therefore need clear ownership, robust controls and transparent processes for managing changes to regulatory data.

Strong governance allows efficiency to increase without weakening accountability.

Preparing for the Direction of Travel

The practical implementation of “report once” will continue to develop. Financial institutions do not need to wait for the final model to assess whether their existing reporting environments are ready for this shift.

They can examine where data is duplicated, how consistently regulatory definitions are applied, whether lineage is sufficiently documented and how easily information can be reused across different reporting requirements.

At Prognosys Solutions, we work with financial institutions to translate regulatory requirements into reporting environments built around reliable data, strong controls and scalable architecture.

The future of regulatory reporting may involve fewer duplicated submissions. Getting there will depend on the quality and structure of the data behind them.