FCA evolving fight against financial crime by employing machine learning

The UK's Financial Conduct Agency (FCA) is evolving the way it tackles financial crime by employing technology, data and analytics, Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA said. 

"We’re also supporting the development of real world technical solutions through our TechSprint events, especially around anti-money laundering (AML)," Mr Woolard revealed. 

He announced that the FCA will host the next stage of the process, with regulatory and law enforcement colleagues from around the world, later this year. 

"We want to explore not only how technology can drive new products, services and firms in consumers’ interests, but also what it can do to reduce the compliance burden of existing ones and make them more effective," Mr Woolard said. 

To make sure the FCA has the skills to take on the challenges of the future, it is also strengthening its focus on science, technology, engineering and maths graduates to increase its capability in areas like cyber security, data science and technology.

"Having this capability in-house will become increasingly important as we grapple with the huge ethical and social questions these new technologies bring up," Mr Woolard noted. 

During 2018, FCA and the Bank of England collaborated with Barclays, Credit Suisse, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest, and Santander to conduct a six-month pilot on Digital Regulatory Reporting. The pilot process is said to have built a better understanding both of how Digital Regulatory Reporting could potentially be delivered and the potential challenges of a roll out of Digital Regulatory Reporting for both regulators and firms.