The FINANCIAL — The Bank of England (Bank) has published ‘Transforming Data Collection from the UK Financial Sector: A Plan for 2021 and beyond’ (the Transformation Plan): its plan to transform its ability to collect data over the next decade. The Bank expects that delivery of the plan will ensure that the Bank gets the data it needs to fulfil its mission, at the lowest possible cost to industry The Bank of England notes.
Publishing the Transformation Plan completes the year long data collection review that was announced in the Bank’s response to Huw van Steenis’ Future of Finance report. That review included the publication of the discussion paper ‘Transforming Data Collection from the UK Financial Sector’ on 7 January 2020.
According to The Bank of England the Transformation Plan is the Bank’s response to tackle strains put on the current data collection process, and on the suppliers of data within the financial sector. These strains include technological advances and automation that mean that more data than ever before is being created and captured. And the expectations of participants across the financial system, including authorities like ourselves, that they should have high quality, timely data available to guide them in their decision making.
The Transformation Plan sets out the issues facing parties involved in the current data collection process; and lays out a vision, reforms and set of next steps that aim to address those issues. Central to the next steps of the transformation plan is the creation of a joint work programme with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and industry.
Sam Woods, Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation and CEO of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said:
“Having timely and consistent data is vital to our role as a regulator, and to the ability of firms to manage their business. Working jointly with the FCA and industry on the reforms set out in the Transformation Plan, we are confident that we can start to deliver valuable change and set the stage for a larger transformation over the next decade.”
Sam Woods and Nikhil Rathi, CEO of the FCA, have written to CEOs of regulated firms to update on the Transformation Plan and set out what the Bank and regulators need from firms in order to tackle the challenges of data collection.
