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.
In this edition, news from Bank for International Settlements – BIS, Bank of England, Bank of Canada, Haut Conseil de Stabilité financière (HCSF), Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and others.
Highlighted
- Deep learning models are ‘fragile’, says Bank of England (BOE) paper. The BOE published a working paper claiming that deep learning models are “fragile” and could pose significant risks to the financial sector. Increasingly prevalent in the finance industry, deep learning, a subset of machine learning, is an artificial intelligence (AI) method based on neural networks structured into multiple layers. Given the opacity of the models deployed for internal and consumer-facing use, there is growing concern over the transparency, reliability, and trustworthiness of their results. Read more here.
Suptech Innovations
- Winners for the Cambridge SupTech Lab $360,000 Launchpad competition announced. Proto, Winnow Technologies and FNA have been announced as winners of three competitions to prototype suptech applications that will digitally transform consumer protection supervision. These firms will receive awards of between $100,000 and $135,000 to develop prototype applications based on proofs-of-concept (POC) created by supervisors who graduated from the 2022 capacity building and education programmes run by the Cambridge SupTech Lab. Read more here.
Research Spotlight
- The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) new research highlights powerful information effects during the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) run. Using a survey with information treatments conducted in the aftermath of SVB’s collapse, the BIS studied households’ perspectives on bank stability, the potential for panic-driven bank runs, and the role of public communication. They find that information about the SVB collapse makes households more inclined to withdraw deposits and that public communication by the Fed – as well as information about FDIC deposit insurance – can be effective tools to reassure depositors. Read more here.
- Gender lens on financial consumer complaints in India. Funded by Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA), researchers at the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change at Ashoka University in India conducted surveys to assess the impact of intrinsic factors such as locus of control, self-efficacy, and fatalism on how women consumers manage redress issues with their digital financial services providers. Results showed that men and women had similar levels of self-efficacy and fatalism when approaching redress, but women had lower levels of internal locus of control (i.e., a perception of less control over their lives) compared to men. Read more here.
- The AI revolution: Opportunities and challenges for the finance sector. This report examines Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the financial sector, outlining its potential to revolutionise the industry as well as its challenges. It emphasises the importance of having a thorough grasp of AI, its capabilities, and its ramifications in order to fully exploit its potential and reduce associated risks. Read more here.
Industry News
- Crypto travel rule comes into effect in the United Kingdom (UK). The ‘Travel Rule’, which took effect on September 1, 2023, obliges UK-based businesses that deal in cryptoassets to gather, confirm, and share data about cryptoasset transfers. These new rules for crypto are set out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and are a step forward towards tackling money laundering by the UK. Read more here.
- Bank of Canada explores quantum-safe technologies for digital currencies. The Bank of Canada is engaging a specialist, evolutionQ, in a research project involving quantum-safe cybersecurity technologies for greenfield digital currencies. The research will explore the profound impact of integrating quantum-safe encryption methods and crypto-agility as design goals for digital currencies. Read more here.
- Hong Kong’s new roadmap to promote fintech adoption in financial services sector. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Insurance Authority (IA) jointly published a new Fintech Promotion Roadmap. The Roadmap contains a series of initiatives to be undertaken by the three regulators over the next 12 months to give further impetus to Fintech adoption in the financial services sector. Read more here.
- Winners of the G20 TechSprint 2023 on cross-border payments revealed. Two teams based in the United Kingdom (UK) and one team from the United States (US) have been announced as the winners of the G20 TechSprint 2023 during an event in Mumbai. Organised by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the TechSprint was launched in May to promote innovative solutions aimed at improving cross-border payments. Read more here.
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launches pilot project for Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit. The RBI is planning to develop a public technology platform for credit transactions. A pilot project has been launched through the central bank’s subsidiary, the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub. According to the RBI, the platform will employ an open architecture and open APIs and standards to develop what the central bank states will be a ‘plug and play model’. Read more here.
- Speech by Neil Esho, Secretary General of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on the work and priorities of the BCBS and the opportunity to contribute to the upgrade of the core principles of banking supervision. Read more here.
- The Group of Central Bank Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), the oversight body of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, met on 11 September to take stock of the lessons learnt from the recent banking turmoil and review the implementation status of outstanding Basel III standards. The GHOS endorsed the Committee’s stocktake, which underlined, among other issues, the role of strong and effective supervision in overseeing the safety and soundness of banks. It is critical that supervisors act early and effectively to identify and promptly correct weaknesses in bank practices. Read the press release here.
Opportunities
- The Cambridge SupTech Lab is seeking to fill a number of roles to grow the team and deepen the impact on the digital transformation of financial supervision. Read more here.
- Financial Network Analytics (FNA) is looking for a Data Scientist to join their Jakarta team. Read more here.
Capacity Building and Education
- Capacity Building and Education – Practical Data Science in Financial Supervision Programme starting soon. The Cambridge SupTech Lab will be running the Data Science Programme from 25th September to 3rd November 2023. The Programme centres on applying best practices and cutting-edge tools to achieve data-driven supervision through a series of theoretical modules and hands-on exercises. Designed for both supervisors who aim to learn about data science and data scientists who want to engage with financial supervision, the course equips participants with the skills to unlock the full potential of data science while maintaining ethical and responsible data collection, handling, and analysis using AI and other advanced technologies. Read more here.
- Free preview webinar for the Cambridge SupTech Lab programme on “Practical Data Science in Financial Supervision” on Thursday 14th September at 9 am EST, 2 pm GMT. There will be a Q&A session with the course directors and an insight into the modules, learning approach, and practical opportunities delivered by the course. Learn more here.
Upcoming Events
- International senior management workshop on climate and biodiversity loss risks. Toronto Centre in partnership with the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) will be hosting an online workshop for mid- to senior-level leaders of central banks and financial supervisory authorities between 3rd and 5th of October 2023. The workshop aims to have discussions around the role of climate change and biodiversity loss in creating new risks and exacerbating existing risks in financial institutions. It will explore the scope for cohesive and realistic supervisory approaches to those risks as well as further actions that may be needed, with a particular focus on leadership, governance, and capacity building issues. Read more here.
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