Hi Suptech Community,
Welcome to the Cambridge Suptech Lab bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter, a source for updates on recent innovations, breakthroughs, opportunities, and upcoming events in the field of suptech, as well as news from the Cambridge SupTech Lab team.
If you would like to flag any items for inclusion in the next newsletter, please email us at cambridgesuptechlab@jbs.cam.ac.uk. Occasionally, we also connect with our global community of supervisors, data scientists, vendors and suptech experts via email to share event invites, news or new courses – subscribe here.
Highlighted
- Cambridge SupTech Lab and AIR – Alliance for Innovative Regulation 2023 Suptech Hackathon. The Hackathon was held virtually from July 26 through August 4 to help financial supervisory agencies make better use of consumer complaints and other supervisory data. It focused on accelerating solutions for this year’s theme, “Beyond Chatbots: Consumer Complaints Analytics” and aimed at data scientists, innovators and technologists to apply their expertise to make a positive impact on financial consumer protection and market conduct. The virtual event identified ways for financial authorities to leverage advanced analytics of complaint data submitted through government portals, innovative chatbots and other channels. Read more here.
Suptech Innovations
- The Innova Integrated RegTech & SupTech Analytics Cloud-Based Platform. Innova Limited is a fintech company based in Nairobi, Kenya, focusing on developing practical solutions to address financial and capital market challenges in Africa. Their Integrated RegTech & SupTech Analytics Cloud-Based Platform offers various capabilities, including risk exposure & volatility analysis, portfolio risk & return analysis, and fund/scheme. The system also enables regulators and supervisors to efficiently monitor and oversee digitised records on asset holdings, transactions, scheme valuations, automated regulatory compliance, custodian and fund manager reconciliation. Read more here.
- Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) supervisory letter writing aid. BNM’s supervisory letter writing aid is helping to automate a key part of communication. This tool provides assistance in supervisory letter preparation, powered by natural language processing and machine learning (NLP/ML). It analyses the tone used and provides sentence suggestions, based on historical written correspondence and also continually learns the more it is used, ensuring more consistency in letters over time. Read more here.
Research Spotlight
- Social media monitoring to assess consumer risks in digital credit apps: Guidance for supervisors from an India pilot. To help monitor the digital credit market, assess consumer risks, listen to the collective voice of consumers and identify potentially concerning providers, CGAP piloted a social media analysis tool in India based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Based on insights and lessons from the India pilot, CGAP has presented supervisory guidance on the use of a branch of AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), for social media monitoring. Although guidance is presented in a general manner that goes beyond the India pilot, it still needs to be well contextualised before its application in a specific jurisdiction. Read more here.
Industry News
- FSB finalises globally agreed rules for crypto-asset activities. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has published its global regulatory framework for crypto-asset activities to promote the comprehensiveness and international consistency of regulatory and supervisory approaches. The framework consists of two distinct sets of recommendations, the first of which addresses the regulation, supervision and oversight of cryptoasset activities and markets; and the second which addresses global stablecoin (GSC) arrangements. The final recommendations draw on the implementation experiences of jurisdictions and are built on the principles ‘same activity, same risk, same regulation.’ Read more here.
- European banks pass the 2023 EU-wide stress test. The European Union’s largest banks passed their 2023 stress tests, with their capital levels in better shape after the test two years earlier. Higher earnings and better asset quality at the beginning of the 2023 both help moderate capital depletion under the adverse scenario. The exercise involved 70 banks, 20 more than in 2021, from 16 EU and European Economic Area (EEA) countries, covering 75% of the EU banking sector assets. Read more here.
- FCA launches permanent digital sandbox. Following 2 successful pilots, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has launched a permanent Digital Sandbox, making the testpad available full-time for firms that want to try out innovative technologies. The FCA began accepting applications for the Sandbox across a full spectrum of financial use cases from 1 August, with approval promised within four weeks. Read more here.
- The republic of Palau partners with Ripple to pilot US dollar-backed stablecoin. Ripple, a global blockchain payments company, has forged a strategic alliance with the Republic of Palau to initiate a pilot program for a US dollar-backed stablecoin. The innovative stablecoin, named the Palau Stablecoin (PSC), will be issued on the XRP Ledger, a blockchain network renowned for its strong security and scalability. Read more here.
Opportunities
- European data market study 2024-2026 tender notice. The European Commission is inviting the public to take part in the tender for the European data market study 2024-2026. The study will provide facts, figures and stories on data-driven innovation to underpin a range of targeted policy measures addressing the European Union’s (EU) data economy. The deadline for receipt of tenders or requests to participate is 12th September 2023. Read more here.
In case you missed it…
- ESG integration in African insurance sector supervision – FSD Africa. The Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa webinar held in September 2022 brought together various stakeholders to discuss some of the limitations and critiques of ESG and present some potential approaches to integrating ESG considerations in insurance supervision and regulation, including toolkits, to help African insurance regulators integrate ESG into insurance sector supervision. ESG still has value in the African context, though it needs to adapt. Listen more here.
Upcoming Events
- Cambridge SupTech Lab – Supervisor of the Future: SupTech Frontiers Programme starting soon. The Cambridge SupTech Lab at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), will be running the Supervisor of the Future: SupTech Frontiers Programme from 14 August to 22 September 2023. The Programme focuses on the paradigm shift in financial supervision that is triggered by the rise of fintech and digital assets. The curriculum, assignments, and live sessions enable deeper understanding of emerging digital technologies and innovative business models, demystify the complexities of evolving supervisory environments and support participants in the creation of suptech applications to address the challenges they face to effectively supervise the financial market. The programme consists of a 6-week online asynchronous learning experience that draws on real-world cases studies and offers a blend of interactive and integrated learning techniques. Let’s embark on this transformative journey together and pave the way for a more efficient and effective supervisory landscape, enriched by the possibilities of suptech. Register here.
- Cyber resilience: from threats, vulnerabilities and incidents to building capabilities, testing and effective management. This virtual event, hosted by Central Banking, brings together central bankers for three days of essential training on cyber resilience, between 12th and 14th September. Various themes will be covered including cyber resilience standards and practices, threat intelligence and red team testing vulnerability management, and eco-system resilience and incident management. Read more here.
- Crisis preparedness and resolution options program. Toronto Centre in partnership with Sveriges riksbank will be hosting an in-person program in Stockholm, Sweden for financial regulators and supervisors, central Bankers, deposit insurers, and senior ministry of finance officials between the 24th and 29th of September 2023. Participants will learn how to use various indicators and approaches to carry out their surveillance of financial institutions and the financial system and to alert them of risks of impending problems and crises. Read more here.
- Suptech: disruptive technologies in reporting, regulation and supervision training. This virtual event, hosted by Central Banking, brings together central bankers for three days of essential training on disruptive technologies in reporting, regulation and supervision, between 26th and 28th September. Various themes will be covered including the impact of technological advancements, implications of digital assets and cryptocurrencies on regulators and supervisors, mitigating the risks of cyber threats and the potential of advanced technologies such as machine readability, big data, and artificial intelligence for regulatory and supervisory purposes. Read more here.
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