The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched the commercial data interchange (CDI) as a way for banks and business customers to share data, such as in support of a loan application.
The CDI infrastructure is a key initiative under HKMA’s 'Fintech 2025' strategy.
Instead of requiring banks and data holders to come to their own arrangements, the parties can now exchange data securely through the CDI infrastructure.
According to HKMA, CDI will help financial institutions to digitise and streamline financial processes and checks, such as know-your-customer (KYC), credit assessment, loan approval and risk management.
HKMA’s deputy chief executive Howard Lee said that with support from banks and data providers across various sectors, CDI will become a key enabler for “multilateral data sharing” among banks and data providers".
Lee predicted that the infrastructure would become a "catalyst" for data-driven financial innovations.
The CDI aims to “enhance data sharing” by facilitating financial institutions to retrieve enterprises’ commercial data.
Further, HKMA is also launching a CDI framework detailing the governance model and structure underpinning the platform, so that participants will be following a common set of rules for accessing data.
The go-live follows a pilot period, during which CDI was used in the approval of\ over HK$1.6 billion in approved SME loans.
So far, 23 banks and 10 data providers are participating in the CDI scheme.
HKMA is also looking to include data from government departments and analytics service providers, with a view to exploring new business use cases leveraging CDI.
