Microsoft joins Veritas consortium led by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in commitment to responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) use in the Financial Services Industry

  • Microsoft latest among 25 organizations to be part of Veritas consortium led by MAS.
  • “Veritas consortium led by MAS is an important initiative in building trust in AI to support its widespread adoption within the FSI industry, across Asia and beyond” – Connie Leung, Financial Services Lead, Microsoft Asia.
  • This follows Microsoft’s collaboration with Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Visa and Linklaters to pilot application of the fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency (“FEAT”) Principles and the Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission Model AI Governance Framework

Singapore, May 28th, 2020 – Microsoft Asia announced today that it has joined the Veritas consortium led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as an Advisory member, to share best practices and its research and support the responsible use of AI in the Financial Services Industry (FSI).

The Veritas consortium, introduced in 2019, seeks to enable financial institutions to institute sound AI governance practices by providing them with a verifiable way to incorporate the principles of fairness, ethics, accountability and transparency (FEAT) into their Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) implementations.

Growing momentum of AI Adoption in the FSI Industry

According to a recent survey by Microsoft and IDC[1], more than half of regional financial institutions surveyed (52%) have adopted the technology, and organizations that have used AI have seen improvements of between 17% and 25% in areas such as customer engagement, innovation, higher margins, and improved business intelligence.

“AI is a gamechanger for the FSI sector, with early adopters of AI advancing their lead. There is therefore a need to ensure its responsible use, for it to reach its full potential while securing the fairness, reliability, safety and privacy of organizations, end-users and societies at large,” – said Connie Leung, Financial Services Lead, Microsoft Asia.

As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will bring to the consortium its industry and technological expertise, as well as Microsoft Research work and Ethical AI principles in the area of business transformation and Data & AI technology adoption.

The company will be involved in regular discussions with the consortium members to jointly assure that the industry effectively adopts and embraces FEAT principles. Additionally, it will contribute research and open source tools developed by Microsoft Research into the group for the purposes of achieving this goal.

“At Microsoft we are committed to support our customers and partners in their digital transformation and we welcome MAS’s leadership in establishing this platform, to strengthen and accelerate collaboration and governance between the regulator, financial institutions and technology firms like Microsoft. We look forward to drive innovation and further adoption of technology in supporting the two core teams on the development of the use cases on credit risk scoring and customer targeting in the consortium. Veritas is an important platform for multi-disciplinary collaboration and open dialogue between the industry and regulators allowing to further build trust in AI to support its widespread adoption within the FSI industry, across Asia and beyond,” added Connie Leung.

Financial Industry business transformation

The collaboration follows Microsoft’s earlier partnerships with Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Visa and Linklaters to pilot Singapore’s responsible AI guidance, in response to the call for feedback from MAS and Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission (SPDPC) to explore issues related to the implementation of the MAS FEAT Principles and the PDPC AI Framework.

Microsoft remains committed to equipping the ecosystem with the right tools and business innovations to allow for the use of data and AI responsibly for agility, customer insights and data driven decision making. This includes discussions with the public sector, including the Ministry of Finance in Vietnam, India and the National Australia Bank, to create awareness of the benefits of AI and cloud, and develop proof of concepts with data and AI to meet their business transformation goals and improve regulatory implementations and operations in the Financial services sector through technology.

Recently, Microsoft in Australia released a white paper “Digitizing Australian financial services with AI”, which presents key insights around how AI is being deployed across Australia’s financial organizations.

“AI is unlocking transformative potential and financial organizations are looking for ways to deploy and test AI solutions quickly. These deployments of AI must respect timeless values and democratic principles, underscored by fairness, privacy, inclusiveness, reliability, transparency and accountability. Microsoft will continue to contribute and support customers, partners and regulators on AI and talent development to create awareness of the benefits of AI through scalable cloud infrastructure to empower organizations to innovate and digitally transform, “ said Connie Leung

To learn more about what Microsoft is doing in the FSI sector, please visit:

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About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, please contact:

Microsoft Asia
Joanna Frackowiak
[email protected]
Edelman (Partner Agency for Microsoft Asia)
Adeline Goh / Amanda Sng
[email protected]

[1] Microsoft/IDC (September 2019), Future Ready Business: Assessing Asia-Pacific FSI’s Growth with AI, covering 15 Asia-Pacific markets, with 168 business leaders and 94 workers from the financial services industry participating in the survey

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