Cambridge SupTech Lab survey outlines progress in suptech adoptions by financial authorities worldwide.
Cambridge, UK – 26 February 2024 – The Cambridge SupTech Lab, an initiative of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, finds the positive trend in the adoption of suptech continues amongst financial authorities, though most implementations remain largely in the early stages of a complete digital infrastructure.
Simone di Castri, a Co-Head of the Cambridge SupTech Lab, said, “The most impactful change we can make in financial services today is to accelerate the digital transformation of supervisory agencies worldwide. Advanced suptech solutions can help financial authorities manage the challenges presented by digitalisation, datafication, globalisation, and the diversification of business models. It can help them address pressing issues such as financial crime, fraud, exclusion, climate change enablers, consumer protection, and artificial intelligence biases. The results of our survey indicate that financial authorities are beginning to embrace the immense opportunities of suptech.”
The survey conducted by the Lab demonstrates early-stage advances in the adoption of suptech:
- 81% of surveyed financial authorities indicate their involvement in various suptech initiatives, an increase from the 71% reported last year.
- Foundational technologies of early suptech generations form the basis of most implementations. Descriptive analytics (83%), dashboards, on-premise relational databases, web portals (79%), and static reports (73.6%) persist in bolstering data quality, management, and overall efficiency in supervisory processes. But financial authorities are beginning to explore next-gen technology such as Generative AI, with 7.6% of respondents reporting having incorporated it into their suptech solution.
- Suptech use cases focus on prudential banking (69%) and consumer protection and market conduct (62%), followed by anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing and proliferation (AML/CFT/CPF) (59%), and cyber risk supervision (39.3%). Surprisingly, digital assets and cryptocurrency oversight is reported to be a priority for only 21% of responding authorities, and ESG for only 15%.
- Gender inclusion commitments are growing, with 45% of financial authorities now collecting sex-disaggregated data. 91.7% use the data to support the design of national financial inclusion strategies and establish specific objectives and targets for financial inclusion, and 79% use sex-disaggregated data to identify gaps in the access, usage, and quality of financial services. Financial authorities should expand data collection beyond demographics to gain more nuanced insights into gender-specific challenges.
- A cultural shift is taking place alongside the digital transformation, with financial authorities creating new roles to drive suptech adoption, training staff, and collaborating across the supervisory ecosystem.
Surveyed financial authorities report the biggest impact of their suptech implementation is the speed with which they are able to respond to emerging risks and take supervisory action (76%). They also cite more efficient information flows between consumers and supervisors (65%). This enables better and more transparent data analysis and timely response to potential issues. Suptech initiatives are also having a positive impact on consumer outcomes (52%), leading to improved protection and increased confidence in financial markets.
The data is based on a survey of 64 financial authorities such as central banks, securities and capital market authorities, financial conduct authorities, and insurance supervisors from six continents, representing financial sector oversight for a significant population of approximatively 2 billion people. The survey was conducted by the Lab between August and November 2023, and the findings are presented in the annual State of SupTech Report.
Matt Grasser, Principal Technologist and a Co-Head of the Cambridge SupTech Lab, said, “Through the Lab, we endeavor to serve as a catalyst for the responsible integration of technologies, empowering public sector authorities to manage more effectively and efficiently some of the most pressing economic risks we face as a society. The diverse perspectives from the global supervisory community reflected in State of SupTech Report serve as the guiding force in shaping our research, training programs, and digital tools. This year’s Report dives particularly deeply into the strategies and structures that dictate data flows within financial authorities, which necessarily inform how suptech solutions can be tailored and harmonised with existing supervisory processes. Such nuance is crucial in mindfully accelerating the next generation of underlying digital supervisory infrastructure for data collection, validation, and storage, but moreover for deriving value from suptech solutions that leverage advanced techniques like natural language processing, machine learning, and even the emerging family of technologies under the banner of generative AI.”
About Cambridge SupTech Lab
The Cambridge SupTech Lab accelerates the digital transformation of financial supervision and supervisory agencies. The Lab delivers world-class online leadership education, experiential training, ground-breaking research, market intelligence, new analytical frameworks, innovative digital tools, and cutting-edge suptech applications. It drives collaboration across the ecosystem of financial supervision to empower a financial sector that is more sustainable and inclusive. Cambridge SupTech Lab is an initiative of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. (www.cambridgesuptechlab.org).
For more information, please contact
Adriana Senior
Head of Communications,
Cambridge SupTech Lab,
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance
