Protecting customer privacy in the financial sector

With increased digitization of the financial sector come the issues of data protection and customer privacy. Banks collect huge amounts of data on individuals, notably from bank accounts, credit card transactions or mobile banking. On the one hand the use of big data in the financial sector is a wonderful opportunity to better respond to customer needs. The biggest hurdle on the other hand is customer privacy and data protection. How can financial institutions most efficiently deal with customer privacy when making use of digital technologies? How should they deal with the issue of privacy given the current context where rebuilding trust is a key challenge?

These are the main questions addressed in the policy paper ‘Protecting customer privacy in the financial sector’, which consists of two parts.

The first part is a contribution by professor Öykü Isik providing a state-of-the-art of data-driven financial services. The second part is the report of a Vlerick regulatory workshop dedicated to the topic gathering representatives from different horizons within the financial sector including regulatory authorities, banks, insurance companies, financial associations, consulting companies, law firms. The second part of the paper provides a detailed overview of workshop presentations, discussions, and co-creation exercise.