UP lends hand on use of big data in central banking

MANILA, Philippines — The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the University of the Philippines signed an agreement to help monetary authorities in formulating appropriate and timely policies for the effective delivery of the central bank’s core mandates.

BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno and UP chancellor Michael Tan signed a memorandum of agreement for a project on the use of big data in central banking last Oct. 10.

Big data are high volume, high velocity, high variety structured and unstructured data sets, which are difficult to utilize through traditional means.

Central banks worldwide are incorporating big data as a supplement to official statistics through leading and near-real time economic and financial indicators and early warning indices.

To make use of big data in its operations, the BSP will collaborate with UP and its multi-disciplinary team of seasoned experts on big data.

The 12-month long BSP big data project will focus on the theoretical, methodological and operational aspects of institutionalizing big data in the BSP.

The key outputs of the project include roadmaps, recommended information technology architecture and capacity-building schemes, big data governance principles and big data system prototypes.