FSRA launches new initiative on artificial intelligence

The OpenReg initiative provides the regulatory context required by firms to develop their own AI solutions

Abu Dhabi Global Market is one of the fastest growing international financial centres in the Middle East and North Africa region. Ruel Pableo for The National

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market is rolling out a new initiative to boost the development of intelligent regulatory technology (RegTech) tools and help Artificial Intelligence achieve regulatory context and understanding.

The move comes amid higher usage of the new technology by financial services firms and other companies.

The Open Regulation (OpenReg) initiative provides a “training ground” for industry specialists, RegTech companies and the data science community to have access to FSRA’s AI models, data and research to create AI-enabled RegTech tools, ADGM said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Without regulatory context, AI applications will be limited in their potential to help financial services firms navigate the regulatory landscape. In this regard, OpenReg provides the regulatory context required by firms to develop their own AI solutions,” ADGM said.

The initiative “builds on the foundation of FSRA’s earlier project on digital regulation, by providing interested stakeholders an opportunity to engage with us on the further evolution of this important RegTech innovation”.

The UAE is launching a number of strategies as the Arab world's second-largest economy embraces the digital economy and positions itself as a global hub for innovation.

In April, the UAE Cabinet approved a strategy in which the digital economy will contribute 20 per cent to the gross non-oil national economy in the coming years.

The strategy aims to double the contribution of the digital economy to the UAE's GDP from 9.7 per cent to 19.4 per cent within the next 10 years, Wam reported at the time.

“This is the first time a regulator has tried to provide a regulatory context in the form of machine-readable regulations and AI models,” Emmanuel Givanakis, chief executive of the ADGM FSRA said.

“By working with the industry and developer community and providing access to the underlying data that we used to create our own AI model, we are looking toward building smarter AI and RegTech solutions that make financial regulation simpler, clearer, and more effective”.

The new move comes as FSRA, the regulator of Abu Dhabi’s financial hub continues to upgrade and amend regulations to mitigate risks and make ADGM an attractive space for home-grown, regional and international companies.

In September, it published guiding principles on its approach to virtual asset regulation and supervision to outline its expectations for the asset class and service providers in the sector.

FSRA also amended its capital market framework, implementing significant enhancements to improve the investment environment and boost growth opportunities in the emirate's financial hub.

ADGM, one of the fastest growing international financial centres in the Middle East and North Africa region, is part of Abu Dhabi's efforts to diversify its economy and connect the emirate with markets in the Mena and economies in South and East Asia.