An Application Design for Reference Enterprise Architecture Models

An increasing number of regulations forces financial institutes to implement a holistic and efficient regulatory compliance management (RCM). Since most institutes primarily implement isolated solutions in a deadline-triggered manner, reference enterprise architectures (R-EA) help them to save costs and increase the quality of their RCM approaches, because they reveal implications regulation has on their business, information and IT architecture. The application of such a R-EA to a specific institute is a context-dependent task and requires an intensive knowledge transfer between R-EA constructor and its user. However, the majority of research activities focuses on R-EA construction, while contributions regarding its application are scarce. Thus, this works presents an application design of a R-EA in the context of RCM, which systematically documents in what context the R-EA can be applied and what benefits it offers to its user. Using design science research (DSR), we contribute to research and practice suggesting a framework for R-EA application and apply it in the RCM context.