Building the future of central banking by investing in people and technology

Investment in technology is just one part of the digital transformation journey, however. Officials wishing to drive digital transformation in an era defined by rapid technological change will need the support of team members to bridge expertise from across their institutions. Many central banks are also engaging in international knowledge sharing to support their colleagues worldwide.

Central banks on a digital transformation journey often describe connecting top-down leadership with rigorous bottom-up testing through the establishment of interdisciplinary teams to drive their vision. This fosters collaboration, steers resource allocation and ensures robust IT and governance systems are put in place.

Cross-disciplinary teams may include stakeholders in departments that conduct operations and use data and analytics – as well as post-trade processing, risk management, legal and IT – to plan timelines and deliver updates. Moving from slow manual processes to streamlined workflows is important, but this must be finely balanced with risk management to ensure seamless operational continuity.

Training teams and investing in people is integral to implementing changes and driving continuous improvements, as stakeholders contribute to expanding the technology’s use cases and development. The use of AI could require additional staff training and audits, as laws worldwide move towards enshrining explainability and accountability standards.

Indeed, AI implementation starts with AI literacy for the team and the enforcement of defined guard-rails, as well as uncomplicated expected business and process key performance indicators. Guard-rails may include limits on use cases and a clear process for humans reviewing AI output to keep a human in the loop.