WASHINGTON – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has announced the selection of six teams that will participate in a “tech sprint” it said is designed to explore new technologies and techniques to determine how well community banks, and the banking sector as a whole, can withstand a major disruption of any type.
The FDIC’s tech lab, FDITECH, launched registration for From Hurricanes to Ransomware: Measuring Resilience in the Banking World on August 30, 2021. The sprint challenges participants to identify solutions that can be used by institutions of all sizes to measure and test their operational resilience to major disruptions, according to the FDIC.
“We look to these six teams to develop consistent data and measures that all banks can use to assess their resilience to a major disruption,” said FDIC Chief Innovation Officer Sultan Meghji. “This work will lay the foundation for stakeholders to build and evaluate future efforts to promote greater resiliency in the banking sector.”
The FDIC said FDITECH selected the following organizations to develop innovative solutions to measure and test bank operational resiliency:
According to the FDIC, the U.S. financial sector is facing a growing number of threats to its information technology systems, operations, people, and facilities. Recognizing the evolving threat environment confronting banks, the FDIC said it sought sprint participants to help answer the question: “What would be the most helpful set of measures, data, tools, or other capabilities for financial institutions, particularly community banks, to use to determine and to test their operational resilience against a disruption?”
The FDIC said FDITECH will host a Demo Day in October, inviting these teams to make short presentations to a panel of expert judges who will evaluate their solutions for creativity, effectiveness/impact, and market readiness.
All submissions will be made public and “winners” will be chosen in several categories. The FDIC said it is not offering monetary prizes associated with this tech sprint.