Financial Conduct Authority chooses Aiimi for improved information discovery

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has put a £1.3m contract in place for its users to better search the regulator’s documents and enhance collaboration across its workforce.

The watchdog has chosen software from Milton Keynes-based data and artificial intelligence software supplier Aiimi for a three-year contract.

According to a statement from Aiimi, the platform it is providing for the FCA will enable its staff to connect information from a diverse range of internal databases that hold information in different data formats in diverse locations, both internally and externally.

The supplier has said search results can be visualised by data and non-data specialists alike to support collaboration among colleagues and teams within the FCA. The supplier’s Insight Engine software has reportedly embedded machine learning capabilities that enable the FCA to be alerted to risks, such as UK firms showing concerning indicators.

The system is also said to boast granular access controls that will ensure FCA users see only what they are authorised to see. The platform also has the “ability to track provenance and facilitate evidence-based decision making [that] will help the FCA to prove diligence in the face of external audits”.

The software will also be incorporated into the FCA’s cloud as a condition of the contract.

Steve Salvin, CEO of Aiimi, said: “Organisations are looking for new, better ways to become data-driven and take control of their information. Insight engines offer a powerful solution to the challenge of discovering relevant, interconnected data and getting instant actionable insights precisely at the moment you need them”.

The supplier was unable to provide a supporting quote from the FCA.

The authority first published a data strategy in 2013, focused on how it collected and managed data. More recently, it has publicly stated its ambition to use advanced analytics techniques to “better understand how increasing [data technology] capabilities are affecting the firms we are regulating”, as well as accrue “direct benefits” for the FCA.

One of the stated elements of the authority’s data strategy, updated on 6 August 2020, is to “share data more effectively and streamline work across the FCA to make us more efficient”.

One of the technology steps it announced in 2020 was “testing and deploying new tools such as web scraping, network analytics and natural language processing for a wide range of scenarios”.

In terms of personnel, it declared its intention to increase “our data science resource throughout the organisation, making it a core capability, and growing our overall data and analytics skills via a comprehensive learning and development programme”.