BIS and G20 Launch TechSprint Initiative to Address Regtech Challenges

This initiative will enable central banks and financial regulators to collaborate with fintech firms on technology solutions to strengthen regulatory and supervisory practices. The BIS Innovation Hub, through its Singapore Center, and the Saudi G20 Presidency have published high-priority regtech or suptech operational problems and invited private firms to develop innovative technological solutions. Selected participants will be invited to present their proposals in a virtual TechSprint Touchpoint workshop for national authorities and other stakeholders in July 2020 and the winners will be announced in October 2020. The problem statements identify challenges in regulatory reporting, analytics, and monitoring and supervision:

• Regulatory reporting and compliance. This covers the upstream solutions and tools that would enable regulators to easily prepare and transmit machine-readable and machine-executable regulations to their regulated entities. This should result in greater regulatory compliance, lower regulatory burden and cost, improved data quality and consistency in regulatory reporting, and more timely surveillance by the regulatory authorities. Solutions should be deployable at least within a jurisdiction and configurable for deployment across multiple jurisdictions, especially in areas of regulation where there are internationally accepted and harmonized data requirements. Solutions could also include the development of a common code repository shared between the regulators and regulated entities to push and pull required regulatory reports or data via authorized application programming interfaces (APIs).
• Utilizing innovation to support efforts in response to COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, the problem states whether a technological solution can be developed to facilitate the sharing of critical information among regulators and supervisors. The solution should offer a comprehensive overview of the measures undertaken within and across jurisdictions in terms of the regulatory and supervisory responses, categorized across different components of the financial system. An ideal solution would incorporate user-friendly interface, with a searchable database on supervisory and regulatory measures in place, and dashboarding tools that would allow for context and customization based on differing user requirements. Solutions that take advantage of machine learning to increase the speed of accurately filtering between noise and signals would aid effective monitoring of market developments, especially in these critical moments.
• Monitoring money laundering and terrorist financing risks. This solution should answer the question on whether artificial intelligence, machine learning, data visualization tools, and other technologies help financial institutions conduct better monitoring and report suspicious activities in more timely and accurate manner to address money laundering/terrorist financing risks as well as help crypto assets service providers comply with the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations. A particular area of interest would be tools to monitor against AML/CFT risks at the main fiat-to-crypto conversion gateways.

The initiative recognizes that regulators and supervisors require the tools to identify vulnerabilities and share information domestically and across borders in real time. Private firms can compete and develop innovative solutions to these problems using the cloud-based APIX platform that facilitates registration, prototype building, and online judging of submissions. This will enable solution providers to utilize a custom-built environment to integrate application programming interface to build and deploy prototypes for solving the challenge statements. An independent expert panel organized and sponsored by the Saudi G20 Presidency will choose these firms and identify the most promising solutions.

Related Links

• BIS Press Release
• G20 TechSprint Initiative

Keywords: International, Asia Pacific, Singapore, Banking, Regtech, Fintech, Suptech, COVID-19, TechSprint, BIS Innovation Hub, G20, API, Reporting, MAS