The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is set to establish an innovation hub to serve the central banking community.
Image: BIS Tower building at Centralbahnplatz 2 in Basel, Switzerland. Photo: courtesy of BIS.
BIS Innovation Hub will facilitate international collaboration on advanced financial technology within the central banking community, as well as compliments an already cooperation within the existing committees.
The new innovation hub will help identify and develop in-depth insights into critical trends in technology, which influence central banking.
It will also allow to develop public goods in the technology space to improve the functioning of the global financial system, in addition to serving as a focal point for a network of central bank experts on innovation.
BIS board of directors chairman Jens Weidmann said: “The establishment of the BIS Innovation Hub will enable central banks to extend their existing collaboration with a view to identifying relevant trends in technology, supporting these developments where this is consistent with their mandate, and keeping abreast of regulatory requirements with the objective of safeguarding financial stability.”
The new hubs will be located in multiple locations, and first centres will be opened in Basel and Hong Kong. As part of the initial phase, a third hub centre will be opened in Singapore, subject to the completion of the necessary institutional arrangements.
Host central banks such as Swiss National Bank, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and Monetary Authority of Singapore will assist in the set-up and ongoing work of the hub centres.
As part of a second phase of implementation, the company will add additional hub centres across the Americas and Europe.
BIS general manager Agustín Carstens said: “I am pleased with the trust and the confidence that our membership has placed in the BIS and its staff to take on this important task.
“With the establishment of a network of central bank experts on technology and innovation, we will now intensify work on a set of projects that reflect the innovation priorities of the central banking community and which could be scaled up through international cooperation over a relatively short period of time.”