Data collection review

Overview

In 2019, as part of its response to the Future of Finance report, the Bank committed to carrying out of a review of Data Collection from the UK Financial sector. The review sought ways “to decrease the burden on industry and to increase the timeliness and effectiveness of data in supporting supervisory judgements”.

The aim of the review was to shape the evolution of reporting over the next 5-10 years, so its goals were long-term. It had a wide scope. The review covered structured data used by our regulatory, statistical, and markets and banking teams. To launch the review, we published a discussion paper (DP) on Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector.

The discussion paper and review findings drew on ideas explored in the Future of Finance report and the pilot on digital regulatory reporting (DRR). The Bank hosted a webinar on 29 January 2020 that covered the main aspects of the DP and offered the opportunity to ask questions. 

Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector: Discussion Paper

Press release

Transformation Plan 

The review helped to shape our views for how we think data collection needs to change over the next decade. On 23 February 2021, we published our views in ‘Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector: a plan for 2021 and beyond’ (Transformation Plan). 

Transforming data collection from the UK financial sector: a plan for 2021 and beyond

The Transformation Plan sets out our vision and approach to delivering improvements in data collection over the next decade. 

Our vision is that: “The Bank gets the data it needs to fulfil its mission, at the lowest possible cost to industry.”

Central to achieving our vision are three key reforms:

a. Defining and adopting common data standards that identify and describe data in a consistent way throughout the financial sector. These common standards should be open and accessible for use by all who need them. We think their adoption will bring benefits well beyond reporting.
b. Modernising reporting instructions to improve how our reporting instructions are written, interpreted and implemented. There are a range of steps we think this will involve, from setting up better Q&A processes to potentially rewriting our instructions as code.
c. Integrating reporting to move to a more streamlined, efficient approach to data collection. This reform includes making data collection more consistent across domains, sectors and jurisdictions, and designing each step in the data collection process with the end-to-end process in mind. 

News release

To help carry out these reforms, a joint work programme has been set up with the BoE, FCA and industry. To find out more information about the joint work programme, please visit the Transforming Data Collection webpage.

If have any questions on the Data Collection Review, Transformation Plan or related subjects covered by the DP please contact: TDCSecretariat@bankofengland.co.uk.