Complexity, big data and financial stability

Abstract

Financial stability analysis and policy should concentrate on accurate price discovery for complex instruments, realistic financial information generation processes, and system-wide risk materializing within complex financial networks. To this end, complexity analysis can make a useful contribution. The effectiveness of these approaches rests crucially on the quality and standardization of big data that today characterized financial activity throughout the globe. Considerable progress is made over the past year in the development of a key element of such standardization—the global legal entity identifier system. It aims to uniquely identify parties to financial transactions across the globe. While this is a necessary and key first step, it is only one step towards a strong, flexible and adaptable global data infrastructure conducive to financial stability policy.