Last month, the European Central Bank (ECB) was awarded the "Digital Transformation Award" by Central Banking for its efforts to drive innovation and technology adoption across the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and beyond.
"In this fiercely competitive field, the European Central Bank's efforts to digitise its supervisory arm stood out for the scale of its ambition and the broad scope of tools and governance structures under development," Central Banking wrote. “Not only is the [SSM] reshaping its own work, but it is also rolling out innovations across the Eurosystem and supporting efforts outside the boundaries of the eurozone.”
In 2020, the ECB launched its "digitalisation blueprint," which laid out its strategy for developing tools and systems, fostering a digital culture, and supporting innovation across academia, the private sector, and across the SSM. "There was a top-down decision that this was an area where the ECB wants to invest, wants to be a leading institution in the use of new technologies," Elizabeth McCaul, a Member of the Supervisory Board at the ECB, told Central Banking. “It was a strategic decision, made first because supervisory technologies, or suptech as we call them, are becoming more prominent, but also because we have to deal with a very high number of tasks, data and processes.”
According to Rafael Garcia Oliva, Deputy Director-Deneral for Information Systems at the ECB, the central bank is set to continue this work and develop a holistic technology and innovation strategy for the coming years. "We see a growing business demand for emerging technologies and for continuous innovation. Embedding AI capabilities effectively into our business processes and systems will be crucial for our success," Garcia Oliva said. “We anticipate more IT-driven innovations for all our business functions in the future.”
Hear more about these efforts, and future plans, from Elizabeth McCaul in our 2024 Compendium. ▸ Learn More
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