Bank of England data chief Ben Martin: first a cloud data platform, then AI with guardrails
Victoria Shinder2 min readBen Martin, the Bank of England's Chief Data Officer, described how the Bank is changing its own use of data, analytics and AI in a speech at the DAMA Data and AI Conference Europe, published by the Bank on 4 November. Martin, who took the role just under a year ago after working in the Bank's economics, markets and supervision areas, said he wanted to talk not about AI's effects on the economy but about what it means for the Bank as an organisation.
He framed the work around the Bank's Data and Analytics Strategy, published a couple of years ago, with three missions, including bridging data gaps and enabling safe innovation including AI, resting on two foundations: a modern cloud enterprise data platform, and investment in business change, skills and culture. His summary was three verbs: enable, equip and empower.
The platform, called the EDP, is the Bank's central cloud-based data and analytics ecosystem. It is meant to bring together macroeconomic and market data from partners and the regulatory and statistical returns the Bank collects from financial firms, and to turn incoming data into trusted, reusable assets. The core was deployed earlier this year, and data services and systems are now being migrated onto it in stages, replacing legacy systems. Martin stressed the word enterprise: data collected for one purpose often has value elsewhere, so the Bank is building shared capabilities instead of separate systems.
On governance he said AI may grab the headlines but runs on data. The Bank has an organisation-wide data management policy and an ownership and stewardship framework, with data owners and stewards across all areas supporting more than 2,000 registered data assets, and it is equipping staff with AI tools behind guardrails and training.
What it means
For firms that report to the Bank, the platform is where their returns will land. A central bank that can join supervisory and market data more easily can ask sharper questions of the firms that send it.