Report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics (EBA)

In March 2018, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) issued a Joint Committee Final Report on Big Data and the EBA published its Roadmap on FinTech. In both documents the ESAs tackled the issues about data-driven approach emerging across the banking sector, which are affecting banks’ business strategies, risks, technology and operations. Furthermore, through the use of Big Data and Advanced Analytics (BD&AA) techniques, institutions are exploring more efficient ways to save costs and ensure regulatory compliance, as well as for the calculation of regulatory capital requirements.

In this context, the EBA has published the Report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics, with the aim of sharing knowledge among stakeholders on the current use of BD&AA by providing useful background on this area, along with key observations, and presenting the key pillars and elements of trust that could accompany their use. This report focuses on BD&AA techniques and tools, such as machine learning (ML), that go beyond traditional business intelligence to gain deeper insights, make predictions or generate recommendations using various types of data from various sources.

This Technical Note summarizes the main aspects included in the Report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics (EBA/REP/2020/01).

Executive Summary

The EBA Report on Big Data and Advanced Analytics focuses on the key pillars for the development, implementation and adoption of BD&AA, the elements of trust in BD&AA and key observations, risks and opportunities.

Scope of Application

This Report is aimed to competent authorities and to credit institutions, investment firms and financial conglomerates.

Main Content

• Key pillars. This report identifies four key pillars for the development, implementation and adoption of BD&AA, which interact with each other and are thus not mutually exclusive: Data management, technological infrastructure, organization and governance & analytics methodology.
• Elements of trust in BD&AA. This report shows that the roll-out of BD&AA specifically affects issues around trustworthiness and notes a number of fundamental trust elements that need to be properly and sufficiently addressed and which cut across the four key pillars: Ethics, explainability and interpretability, fairness and avoidance of bias, traceability and auditability, data protection and quality, security, and consumer protection.
• Key observations, risks and opportunities. This Report outlined the key observations on institutions, opportunities, risks and proposed guidance.

Download the technical note by clicking here (document available in english).