On 16 May 2023, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) published a speech given by Rebecca Jackson at the Association of Foreign Banks Mansion House lunch, in which she discusses a step change in how the PRA uses supervisory and firm data.

Ms Jackson explains that, in 2021, the PRA started work on a 5-year strategy aiming to deliver a step change in its efficiency, effectiveness and data culture by 2026 through phased investment in tools, technology, processes and skills – essentially, how it uses data. Alongside this, the PRA has begun to engage with firms on which data it collects, and continues to consult firms on longer-term reforms to how it collects data. Ms Jackson explains that market events continue to provide lessons about the data the PRA needs for its supervision of firms, whilst post-Brexit it has new freedoms as to how it regulates, and the use of RegTech will enable it to ‘regulate as no one has before’.

The speech goes on to explain Ms Jackson’s view, as a prudential supervisor and as the Director responsible for the PRA’s RegTech agenda, of what firms can expect in relation to the PRA’s data strategy. The discussion covers mainly the first leg of the data strategy – the PRA’s use of data to explore firms – and draws out some implications for the data the regulator needs and how it collects it.

Ms Jackson concludes that the PRA has a strong strategy to explore firms ‘both through quieter times and crisis’, that it is committed to promoting a dynamic industry in which it might seek new innovations and firms, and that through RegTech and Transforming Data Collection the PRA can ‘push out the efficient frontier and regulate as no one has before’. She flags that the PRA will need input from the industry through ongoing engagement with its Banking Data Review and Transforming Data Collection.