Seeking to secure growth for the UK’s financial sector, The Bank of England (Bank) has published ‘Transforming Data Collection from the UK Financial Sector: A Plan for 2021 and beyond’ (the Transformation Plan): its plan to transform its ability to collect data over the next decade. 

The Bank expects that delivery of the plan will ensure that it gets the data it needs to fulfil its mission, at the lowest possible cost to industry.

Prior to publishing the Transformation Plan, the Bank conducted a year-long data collection review, announced in its response to Huw Van Steenis’ Future of Finance report.

Sam Woods, Deputy Governor for Prudential Regulation and CEO of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said: “Having timely and consistent data is vital to our role as a regulator, and to the ability of firms to manage their business. Working jointly with the FCA and industry on the reforms set out in the Transformation Plan, we are confident that we can start to deliver valuable change and set the stage for a larger transformation over the next decade.”

The Transformation Plan sets out the issues facing parties involved in the current data collection process; and lays out a vision, reforms and set of next steps, with the aim of addressing those issues. Central to the next steps of the transformation plan is the creation of a joint work programme with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and industry figures.