From October 2016 to September 2020, the RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R2A) partnered with standard-setting bodies, financial authorities, and technology firms to accelerate suptervisory technology (SupTech) applications and the digital transformation of financial supervision. We broke new ground working at the frontier of SupTech, demonstrating that there is value in the creation of private sector solutions for public agencies' challenges, that those financial authorities and the civil servants who oversee our financial sectors are eager to use new technologies - and they deserve to work with modern tools and in a new culture of innovation! - and that there is a potential for a marketplace for those solutions to rise.

R2A paved the way for the creation of the Cambridge SupTech Lab at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), University of Cambridge Judge Business School. The expertize, processes and tools developed by R2A have been foundational for the Lab to come to life. Please follow this new iteration of our work at www.cambridgesuptechlab.org.

This website will remain online as a resource library for the work of R2A, but will no longer be updated. We wish to thank all the supervisors, technologists, and other experts who have contributed to the success of R2A.

The RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R²A) partners with leading financial sector authorities to propel digital transformation of financial regulatory and supervisory authorities.

A core focus of (R²A) is pioneering innovative SupTech applications to address challenges for regulation, supervision, and policy analysis. With support from R²A, financial authorities enhance their intelligence harnessing new data to establish a body of knowledge and evidence that drives targeted, risk-based decision-making.

Through R²A, public agencies re-imagine how they deploy technology to collect and manage data, and re-design the working enviroment to enhance their leadership and analytical capabilities.

R²A also engages closely with tech firms to create structured opportunities for them to propose solutions and collaborate with financial authorities in the design and testing of promising ideas. In fact, we aim to contribute to the creation of a global SupTech marketplace where robust solutions are available and demonstrated for key use cases.

R²A works alongside the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at the University of Cambridge.

Financial markets are undergoing a digital, data-driven revolution. Financial authorities have difficulty keeping up with this rapid innovation. Regulatory and supervisory systems are falling behind because their capacity has not increased commensurately with the market’s expansion and complexity, and the inclusion of millions of new users. The future of financial supervision and regulation lies in harnessing new technologies to enhance authorities’ capabilities and deliver smart solutions.

Accessing new datasets and analyzing available data more effectively allows financial authorities to establish a body of knowledge and evidence to drive smart policy reforms that promote financial inclusion and ensure financial stability, integrity, and consumer protection. R²A accelerates these advances by helping authorities re-imagine how they collect and manage data, and by developing new solutions that strengthen their capabilities.

The RegTech for Regulators Accelerator (R²A) pioneers the development of innovative solutions for financial sector supervision, regulation, and policy analysis. The project vision is to contribute to the creation of a global SupTech marketplace where robust solutions are available and demonstrated for key use cases.

In 2018, R²A partnered with two financial authorities – the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Mexican Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) – and three technology firms selected through global competitions – CRT, Gestell, and Sinitic – to test and develop three SupTech prototypes. After successful delivery of the prototypes, two solutions received additional investments to be fully deployed – the two solutions were also awarded the Central Banking 2019 award for innovation in regtech and fintech.

We also launched an AML working group with the aim to provide AML supervisors with a platform to discuss “Solutions to Strengthen Financial Integrity and Combat Financial Crime.” The heterogeneous group of participants includes financial authorities from Uganda, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the United States responsible for AML/CFT regulation and supervision from a variety of high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries.

Meanwhile, with funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, our team and the developers of the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems PLC developed the Nigeria DataStack.

In 2019 R²A received additional funds from Flourish to complete the work started in 2018 and developed a partnership with the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Institute to run a taxonomy of the many experiments undertaken by financial authorities around the globe. The outcomes of this work are the report “SupTech Generations” and the solution tracker.

In addition, we collaborated with the BIS, other global stakeholders (e.g., the World Bank and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion), and financial authorities (e.g., the San Francisco Federal Reserve and Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to share in conferences and workshops the outcomes and lessons from our work.

In 2020 our focus was the partnership with the BIS and the Saudi G20 Presidency for the design and implementation of the G20 global SupTech TechSprint, as well as the delivery of a number of capacity building activities.

R²A was launched in October 2016 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and USAID, and fiscal sponsorship from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. BFA Global was the managing partner and lead implementer of the project from 2016 until October 2020. Simone di Castri, David Porteous, Rosita Najimi, Matt Homer, and Kabir Kumar were the founders of R²A.