Background
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is Australia’s corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit regulator. As part of its strategic ambition to become a data-informed regulator, ASIC is investing in a modern, scalable Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) to support its regulatory mandate and simplify digital interactions for Australian businesses.
The Challenge
The Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) is a vital asset for ASIC, built on Databricks to support advanced analytics, investigations, enforcement, and cross-agency data integration. Previously, ASIC’s legacy infrastructure posed significant limitations, including challenges in efficiently ingesting and processing large volumes of regulatory and external data, enabling advanced analytics across business units, and providing timely, high-quality data for investigations and enforcement. It also struggled to meet growing expectations around data governance, quality, and lineage.
The challenge was to uplift the EDP into a future-ready, governed, and scalable platform that could support multiple programs of work, including the Modernisation of Business Registers and regulatory technology transformation. ASIC aimed to:
• Modernise its data architecture using cloud-native technologies
• Enable cross-functional data access for investigations, enforcement, and analytics
• Integrate external data sources into a unified platform
• Improve data governance, quality, and discoverability
• Support strategic programs such as business unit separation and regulatory tech uplift
Our Approach
EXCO Partners brought a multi-disciplinary, collaborative, and delivery-focused approach to uplift ASIC’s Enterprise Data Platform. This approach was anchored in strategic advisory, working closely with the Chief Data & Analytics Office (CDAO) to ensure platform capabilities aligned with ASIC’s regulatory priorities.
Agile delivery methods enabled the iterative development of data pipelines, models, and integrations, ensuring early and continuous value delivery. The team emphasised technical excellence by deploying experienced Data Architects, Engineers, Modellers, and Testers to build robust and scalable solutions. A governance-first mindset was embedded from the outset, incorporating data quality, cataloguing, and lineage through tools like Collibra. Additionally, EXCO Partners supported cross-program enablement, contributing to initiatives across investigations, enforcement, and the Modernisation of Business Registers.
The Solution
EXCO helped ASIC implement and uplift a modern Enterprise Data Platform with the following capabilities:
• Databricks uplift to enhance computing and orchestration for large-scale data processing
• Delta Lake architecture: Enabling scalable, ACID-compliant data lakes
• Data Vault 2.0 modelling: Supporting flexible, auditable data integration
• Integration with R Studio: Empowering analysts and data scientists with familiar tooling
• Collibra integration: Delivering enterprise-grade data cataloguing, quality, and governance
• External data ingestion: Seamless integration of datasets from other government departments
“The journey to uplift our data capability has allowed ASIC to streamline processes and better identify illegal phoenix activity, but also where possible engage in early intervention to drive better outcomes for the impacted parties.”
- Chief Data & Analytics Officer, ASIC
Impact:
Operational Improvements:
• Improved data quality and lineage through automated cataloguing and validation
• Faster insights for investigations and enforcement teams via integrated analytics tooling
• Increased platform adoption across business units due to improved usability and performance
Strategic Outcomes:
• Enabled cross-agency collaboration through secure, governed data sharing
• Supported transformation initiatives including business unit separation and regulatory tech uplift
• Strengthened ASIC’s ability to identify illegal phoenix activity and engage in early intervention to improve outcomes for impacted parties
The Future:
EXCO continues to support ASIC in advancing its Enterprise Data Platform by enabling real-time analytics and AI, integrating external data sources to boost regulatory intelligence, and delivering scalable, governed architecture for the Modernisation of Business Registers. The partnership also focuses on embedding data governance across the organisation and empowering business users through self-service analytics and data discovery