Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are the two driving factors of innovation in the financial sector nowadays. They not only represent important research priorities, but hitherto shaping the business models of banks and stock exchanges. Financial market regulators will also use AI applications in the future, for example to more effectively combat money laundering and market manipulation, according to the BMWi.
Indeed, data volumes are already growing faster than available storage. Digital datasets are reaching triple-digit zettabytes, and even cloud-based connectivity data seems to be flourishing at a pace that can no longer be throttled.
In the age of commercialization of the internet, we sometimes forget that:
“We are the ones who became witnesses, participants and shapers of these new technological developments,”
said Andreas Glänzel, Managing Director of Frankfurt Main Finance at the 14th Financial Center Day of the WM Group at the end of June. Therefore, key players, such as the State of Hesse, Deutsche Börse, TechQuartier and Bundesbank, are currently joing forces to form a Financial Big Data Cluster (FBDC) to build a cloud-based platform for the financial sector that integrates previously unlinked financial data into a collective data pool and optimizes it for the development of AI applications.
The project GAIA-X
Since 2018, the State of Hesse has been driving the development of a Financial Big Data Cluster together with stakeholders from politics and administration, Hessian universities as well as companies from the financial center here in Frankfurt. Subsequent year, project GAIA-X emerged on a European level, with representatives from business, science and politics developing a proposal for the design of the next generation of a European data infrastructure.
Today, the Financial Big Data Cluster represents the central use case for the financial sector. Earlier this year, a feasibility study on the further implementation of the cluster showed how the integration of heterogeneous data sets can be implemented very concretely in a data platform. GAIA-X presents a project by Europe for Europe, with the aim to develop common requirements for a European data infrastructure. Against this background, openness, transparency and European connectivity are central to GAIA-X.
This project comes “exactly at the right time, because data is becoming more and more,” said Lucie Haß, managing director of Heleba Digital at a panel discussion on the 14th Financial Center Day here in Frankfurt, with Prof. Dr. Martin Hellmich, managing director of audit analytics at Deloitte, and Dr. Sebastian Schaefer, managing director of TechQuartier.
“GAIA–X is a wonderful way to seek proximity,” stated Dr. Sebastian Schaefer, ” and “upon – make the European canon of values heard.”
Photo: 3844328 / Pixaby
