MAS and BIS Innovation Hub develop analytics platform for supervision

THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub Singapore Centre have developed a prototype analytics platform that could help regulatory authorities perform more effective supervision.

The Project Ellipse platform enables regulatory and other data - such as articles and news - to be integrated into a single platform, which helps authorities identify potential risks to individual banks and the banking system, BIS and MAS said in a statement on Thursday (Mar 31).

"Integrating regulatory and other data, facilitated by advanced technology, could enhance the analytical capabilities of regulators to be more forward-looking and data-driven," they said.

The new platform comes amid changes in the financial landscape, with a shift in volume, speed and variety of data driving the use of financial technology. Meanwhile, supervisory data collection is still largely unchanged, with infrequent submissions using fixed aggregated templates.

"Supervisors are faced with the challenge of needing to assess rapidly evolving risks to business models and technology-driven changes that may affect financial stability, with regulatory data that are infrequent and collected according to legacy frameworks," the Project Ellipse report noted.

BIS Innovation Hub acting head, Ross Leckow, said Project Ellipse has developed a potential tool for global regulators to further explore and collaborate on common solutions that can improve their data and analytical capabilities.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

"It has the potential to be a game changer by giving supervisors access to more and better data - structured and unstructured - with greater predictive insights than ever before," he said.

Ho Hern Shin, deputy managing director for financial supervision at MAS, added: "Recent technological advancements have opened up possibilities for supervisors to leverage on more granular, timely and varied datasets to significantly improve supervisory effectiveness."

She noted that Project Ellipse demonstrates that the collection and use of such datasets need not be prohibitive, and MAS is adapting the prototype for its own supervisory needs.

"I hope other supervisors will similarly find it useful and look forward to further joint initiatives to develop common SupTech solutions for supervisors," she said.

To enable collaboration, BIS said it will launch an Ellipse collaboration community to share, further test, customise and scale the solution across regulatory authorities worldwide.

MAS and BIS Innovation Hub Singapore Centre launched Project Ellipse in January last year, and the project was undertaken with the support of the Bank of England, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Accenture, and Financial Network Analytics.