BIS and FNA partner to create regulatory data platform

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has been working with FNA, a London-headquartered financial analytics and simulation specialist, to build a prototype regulatory data and analytics platform.

Nurtured under its Innovation Hub initiative, BIS has partnered with FNA and the Monetary Authority of Singapore to deliver an integrated regulatory platform that will enable central banks to evaluate the impact of emerging credit risks on the financial system.

This platform prototype draws on data sources including news feeds, contagion algos and interactive visualisations that will enable financial supervisors to react more promptly to credit risk events and to make better policy decisions based on a broader and deeper pool of supporting data.

Labelled Project Ellipse, the two-stage project focused initially on how data-driven supervision could be enabled through machine-executable digital reporting employing a common cross-border data model.

In Phase 2, the project applied advanced data analytics, including network analytics, machine learning and natural language processing, to unstructured data and granular reporting data on loans. This stage of the programme set out to understand key correlations within the data set, how risk is propagated, and to evaluate market sentiment relating to borrowers.

The BIS intends to create a Project Ellipse collaboration community to share and build on this solution across financial authorities globally.

FNA founder and CEO Kimmo Soramäki says: “We know the transformative power of technology is helping the financial community to understand risk and to take meaningful action. Project Ellipse represents a step change for the global regulatory community to collaborate on common solutions that can future proof their data and analytical capabilities.

“Working worldwide with many government institutions, we are absolutely committed to global knowledge development in this space and fully support the supranational efforts that have underpinned Project Ellipse. We are excited to see this deployed and delivering real results for regulators.”