Accelerating the digital transformation of financial supervision in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) involves a comprehensive approach that integrates research, capacity building, technical assistance, and ecosystem development. The Asociación de Supervisores Bancarios de las Américas (ASBA) event held on July 23-24, 2024, in Costa Rica exemplified this approach by bringing together key representatives from financial authorities across the region to discuss suptech initiatives.
Matt Grasser and Leslye Sihuay participated from the Cambridge SupTech Lab, underscoring the collaborative opportunities available to enhance regional supervision capabilities and technical assistance. Insights gathered from the event’s Training and Technical Committee meetings, as well as individual conversations, highlighted a strong collective interest in advancing suptech initiatives and collaborating with the Cambridge SupTech Lab.
Leslye specifically discussed a “regional scale-out” approach, underpinned by the Lab’s “learn, experience, build” model, to helping solve the pressing supervisory issues of today in LAC, including significant budget constraints, outdated systems, under skilled staff, poor data quality, undefined strategy, the need for coordination with other agencies. In the State of SupTech Report 2023, the region identified critical areas of supervision as being prudential, followed by anti-money laundering, consumer protection and cyber risk.
The “regional scale-out” approach leverages a one-to-many strategy, where capacity building, practical experiences, and prototypes developed through the “learn, experience, build” model are scaled across various countries in the region. This approach optimizes resources and insights, fostering greater collaboration and driving a more unified and impactful transformation throughout LAC.
The Regional SupTech Scale-Out Facility seeks to accelerate digital transformation across the region by enhancing supervisory capabilities, promoting regional standardization, improving cross-border coordination, fostering innovation, strengthening institutional capacity, and expanding successful prototypes to achieve a broader impact.
It is important to highlight the evident progress being made by several countries in the region, as well as the challenges they continue to face. This underscores the strong regional interest in suptech and the commitment to adopting innovations that will further accelerate the digital transformation of financial authorities.
Looking ahead, the collaborative efforts among financial authorities, combined with the implementation of strategic initiatives like the regional scale-out approach, will be crucial in shaping the future of financial supervision in LAC. By embracing these innovations and working together, the region is well-positioned to overcome its challenges and unlock new opportunities for more resilient and efficient supervisory frameworks.
