The RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2A)

About R²A

BFA Global launched the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R²A) in 2016, in partnership with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the Mexican Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) and the Central Bank of Nigeria, to develop and test next-generation SupTech solutions. As of November 1st, 2020, R²A (now housed here) will move on from its first phase as a BFA Global-incubated program and continue its work alongside the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge.

The R²A team partnered with leading financial sector authorities to pioneer SupTech applications for financial sector regulation, supervision, and policy analysis. The initiative’s objective was to contribute to the creation of a global SupTech marketplace where robust solutions are available and demonstrated for key use cases. With support from R²A, financial authorities could access new datasets and enhance their intelligence to establish a body of knowledge and evidence that drives financial inclusion and supports financial stability, integrity, and consumer protection.

Through R²A, partner financial authorities re-imagined how they collect and manage data, and harness technology to improve the speed, quality, and comprehensiveness of information in support of targeted, risk-based decision-making. R²A also engaged closely with technology innovators to create structured opportunities for them to propose solutions and collaborate with financial authorities in the design and testing of promising ideas.

In its next phase, R²A will become an integral part of the vast ecosystem of projects that CCAF is implementing to address emergent gaps in financial sector innovation, to support evidence-based decision-making by regulators, supervisors, policymakers, and related stakeholders.

The R²A team will continue to develop proofs of concept and SupTech solutions for financial authorities to adopt new supervisory solutions and develop strategies for their digital transformation, and to produce knowledge products to continue sharing expertise and contributing to a bespoke dialogue on the future of financial supervision.

The team will also design a SupTech module for the Cambridge FinTech and Regulatory Innovation (CFTRI) online education program, which will contribute to building capacity for regulators and supervisors at a global scale on the topic of supervisory technologies. They will seek to leverage collaborations with other parts of Cambridge under the Business School – to explore new ways to support the growth of the SupTech marketplace, for example by working closer with SupTech providers to equip them to effectively engage and partner with public sector agencies.

REGTECH FOR REGULATORS LAUNCH EVENT | OCTOBER 2016