Singapore releases methodologies on responsible use of AI by financial institutions

The Veritas Consortium also released an open-source toolkit to help with adoption.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has released five whitepapers that detail assessment methodologies for the fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency principles, meant to guide the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by financial institutions (FIs).

The whitepapers were published by the Veritas Consortium, which comprises 27 industry players. 

The white papers provide a comprehensive FEAT checklist for FIs to adopt during their Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) software development lifecycles; and an enhanced Fairness Assessment Methodology to enable FIs to define their AIDA system’s fairness objectives, identify personal attributes of individuals and any unintentional bias. 

It also has a new Ethics and Accountability Assessment Methodology, which provides a framework for FIs to carry out quantifiable measurement of ethical practices, in addition to the qualitative practices currently adopted.

It also carries a new Transparency Assessment Methodology which helps FIs determine whether and how much internal/external transparency is needed to explain and interpret the predictions of machine learning models.

The Veritas Consortium also released an open-source toolkit meant to help FIs adopt the methodology. The toolkit reportedly enables the automation of the fairness metrics assessment and allows for visualisation of the interface for fairness assessment and for the plug-ins to integrate with FI's IT systems.

MAS also shared that it is collaborating with the Infocomm Media Development Authority and the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) to include the Toolkit in the PDPC’s Trustworthy AI testing framework.

Four core teams within the consortium developed the methodologies, toolkit, and business case studies. The first team, composed of Swiss Re and Accenture, refined the Fairness Assessment Methodology and applied it to insurance predictive underwriting.

Meanwhile, United Overseas Bank (UOB), AXA, and Accenture developed the Ethics and Accountability Assessment Methodology and applied it to customer marketing and insurance fraud detection.

The third team, comprised of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), HSBC, and Truera developed the Transparency Assessment Methodology and applied it to credit risk scoring and customer marketing.

The final group of  Accenture and Bank of China developed Veritas Toolkit version one with the support from BNY Mellon, HSBC, SCB, and UOB.

In the future, the consortium plans to develop additional case uses and run pilots with selected FI members to integrate the methodologies with members’ existing governance framework.