Data Standard Committee minutes
Date of meeting: 16 March 2023 | Location: Microsoft Teams
Minutes
Data Standards Committee
Item 1. Introduction
AS introduced the meeting and ran through the agenda. He recapped the actions from the previous meeting and asked the committee to approve the minutes. Members had no comments and approved the February meeting minutes.
Item 2. Update on Data Standards Review
LD gave an update on the work on the report from the Data Standards Review (DSR), explaining that Ernst and Young (EY) have provided a proposal for additional work, based on the previous feedback from the committee about the report. She explained that from a regulator perspective the proposal would address the feedback the committee provided and that the timeline to revise the report is around three weeks.
LD proposed that a smaller subgroup meet weekly to provide additional oversight on the development of the report. The committee planned to respond to the conclusions of the report with a set of recommendations. LD explained that regulators would likely then want to respond to what the committee puts out, possibly at the same time as the recommendations.
Key discussion points / comments:
- Members generally agreed that this proposal from the consultants is a significant step forward from the original report.
- AD explained that this would add another two weeks until the committee get the final report, so that they can base their comments and recommendations on this. Members agreed that an extra two weeks is worth it in order to get a better report.
- AD and GC volunteered to be part of the oversight group and contribute to the report.
ACTION: Committee members (ideally two) to email AD to volunteer to be part of the new oversight group.
Item 3. Phase 2 use cases - updates and discussion
Commercial Real Estate (CRE)
The CRE team have completed their discovery work and now begun their design phase. Members of the team presented the problems with CRE data collection from a firm and Bank of England (the Bank) perspective and the principles that will be used to redesign CRE data collection. The team outlined some of the potential design ideas they have come up with, some of which build on the work done in TDC Phase 1. The team asked the committee for feedback on these ideas.
Key points for discussion / comments:
- AT agreed with the team that the design ideas emerging from the use case are transformational, but only if they can be applied across all regulatory reporting.
- Members pointed to the emergence of similar design ideas in different use cases, and suggested more streamlined approaches to solution design and implementation. AS replied that it would be wrong to go as far as making assumptions about solutions for future use cases before any discovery work is conducted, but agreed with the need to address at scale any common issues occurring across use cases, which is why TDC has a scaling workstream.
- Members questioned if taking a use case-by-use case approach is the most effective way of working. LD replied that this is a strategic consideration for the future, that will be discussed among the team and committees at future meetings.
- AT asked if CRE solutions would be restricted to PRA-regulated firms. SH explained that one of the key issues discussed in CRE work during TDC phase 1 was how to increase the scope of data collection to more firms. The team was investigating how to encourage other firms outside the Bank's remit to submit data.
ACTION: Discuss commonalities across use cases and how to efficiently address this at future strategic meetings.
Incident Outsourcing and Third-Party Reporting (IOREP)
MR (delivery manager for IOREP) gave an overview of the use case. He explained that the contract terms with consultants have been finalised, and a draft delivery plan received from consultants for making quick progress. He expected user/stakeholder interviews to begin the following week.
Strategic Review of Prudential Data Collections (SRPDC)
LC recapped the scope of the use case and informed the committee that the team have completed their discovery work. She gave an overview of the problems and opportunities that have arisen from the discovery work e.g. inaccessible guidance, inadequate training and tooling, poor data quality. She described propositions for work in the next phase, and explained that next steps would be defining the scope for the Alpha phase.
Key discussion points / comments:
- AD asked how the FCA are coordinating with the Bank to see where there is overlap in solutions and avoid misaligned separate Bank and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reporting solutions. LD explained that the programme team is keeping track of the solutions coming out of each use case and also making sure they align the common themes.
- AD asked for clarity on whether solo-regulated firms are asked to report information that dual-regulated firms report. CC explained that largely the prudential data is separated based on the type of permissions an entity has, and therefore the solo-regulated entities tend to have different requirements from dual-regulated entities. AT adds that solo-regulated firms cover a huge range of sectors so there won’t necessarily be a lot of crossover.
- JB1 raised solution prioritisation and explained that for different use cases, different solutions would be better investments. For example in this use case, where reporting requirements are complex and nuanced, investment in guidance would give the best return. AD thought this theory was interesting and could form a reference frame for future solutions.
ACTION: JB1 to document a method for prioritising solutions and circulate to committee members, for future discussion.
Retail Banking Business Model Data (RBBMD)
CC gave an overview of the RBBMD use case. He told the committee that the user research has taken place and the information analysed. He presented the high-level journey map for the collection, along with the emerging issues and opportunities identified, e.g. supporting firms with interpreting definitions, automation of data cleaning. He explained that the next sprint should identify information requirements for the alpha phase and to understand the supervision and policy data needs in more detail.
Item 4. Forward agenda / AOB
AS explained that the next meeting of the Data Standards Committee (DSC) is scheduled for 25th April 2023 and will be hosted at the FCA in Stratford. Two discovery workshops between the use case teams and committees are planned before this date for RBBMD and IOREP. He added that there is a public Town Hall meeting scheduled on the 29th March at the FCA and encouraged committee members to attend.
CT asked whether there could be a standard approach to data collections across datasets, and whether such a framework could appear on future agendas. AS summarised that a theme of comments at the meeting has been a desire to effectively deal with commonalities across use cases, and reiterated that the group would discuss this at future committee meetings. Committee members also asked about how their firm colleagues would be involved in IOREP work.
ACTION: AS to contact relevant committee members to let them know how they can feed into the discovery phase of IOREP.
Attendees:
Ffion Acland (FA), Goldman Sachs
Julian Batt (JB1), Bank of America
Jessica Bohane (JB2), Admiral
Chris Caldwell (CC), Financial Conduct Authority
Gabriel Callsen (GC), International Capital Market Association
Lauren Dixon (LD), Financial Conduct Authority
Andrew Douglas (AD), Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (chair)
Dawd Haque (DH), Deutsche Bank
Tom Jenkins (TJ), HSBC
Jane Laughton (JL), Bank of England
Angus Moir (AM), Bank of England
Angela Pearce (AP), Pension Insurance Corporation
Corinne Powley (CP), Phoenix Group
Peter Royle (PR), Financial Conduct Authority
Olivia Selbie (OS), Financial Conduct Authority
Aaron Shiret (AS), Bank of England
Nicola Sincock (NS), Santander
Claire Thompson (CT), Lloyds Banking Group
Andrew Turvey (AT), Belmont Green
Other Bank and FCA staff observing
Apologies:
Naomi Beckett, UBS
David Shone, International Securities Lending Association
Richard Young (RY), Bloomberg