Mobey Forum, the global industry association empowering banks and financial institutions (FIs) to shape the future of digital financial services, today announces the formation of a new Expert Group to address how banks and other financial institutions (FIs) can strike the balance between data privacy, security and innovation in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“The banking industry is on the verge of a huge wave of data-driven innovations that will transform the industry from the ground-up,” says Expert Group Chair, Amir Tabakovic, CEO and Founder, experiens.ai. “Ultimately, banks’ success will hinge on how well they can use, share and monetise their customers’ data. In response to increasingly stringent privacy and security regulations, banks and FIs are being forced to up their game. Not only do they need to continue to ensure the security of their customers’ sensitive information, they also need to maximise their use of it, to protect and extend their market share and collaborate with new players entering the market.”

The Data Privacy in the Age of AI Expert Group brings together multidisciplinary experts to determine how banks can navigate business, technical and regulatory data management challenges to successfully develop their own AI-driven processes, products and services.

“There is an awful lot of talk about AI in the banking space, but without first solving the data privacy challenge many AI use cases won’t materialise,” adds Tabakovic. “A number of questions remain unanswered. How can privacy be better protected during the testing of in-house or externally developed applications? How can banks improve the privacy-utility trade-off for anonymous data while engaging third-party vendors and fintech startups? What are the best approaches to ensuring that privacy does not prevent or impede innovative AI use cases or restrict access to new infrastructures, like the Cloud?

“There is still a perception that privacy is the adversary of innovation, especially on the scale required for AI. Through our new Expert Group, however, we hope to identify new approaches that will prove that banks and FIs can do both, ultimately supporting the creation of secure, data-driven AI services.”

Commenting on the launch, Elina Mattila, Executive Director at Mobey Forum, adds: ‘’AI and data privacy are major development points for banks, financial institutions and fintechs, all of whom are facing similar challenges. Our Expert Groups are designed to enable members to freely exchange knowledge and experiences, in a bid to establish best practices and identify new solutions that can benefit everyone. We’re really excited to see where this new Expert Group takes us over the coming months.”