The ABA Policy Advocacy Committee, which is currently under the chairmanship of Mr. Austin Chiang, Chief Strategy Officer at CTBC Bank. looks forward to another activity-filled year ahead with a number of policy issues to address as part of its advocacy work in 2024.

During its first meeting for this year held online in conjunction with the March 13 meeting of the ABA Planning Committee, the ABA Policy Advocacy Committee approved its Work Program for 2024. As agreed by the Committee, its Work Program this year will have three primary objectives which are expected to be achieved through the following activities:

(a) Promoting modernization of banking technology for a future-ready operating platform and enhanced cybersecurity through:

• Sharing of information, experience and practices on banks’ technology modernization efforts to enhance operating quality, time to market, and cyber security
• Sharing of information and experience in dealing with and protecting one’s organization from customer fraud, including drivers to identify potential fraud, steps to take after discovering fraud, and how to mitigate its impact on the bank and to general customers.
• Sharing of information, experience, and practices in implementing zero-trust cybersecurity framework in banking, in response to increase of cyber threats accompanying digitization, open banking, and banking on cloud.
• Promoting more active engagement with regulators across countries   for deregulation on modern technology, such as banking on cloud, and government support on issues of customer fraud and cyber threats.

(b) Promoting and sharing of information on AI use cases and AI technology implementation in banking through:

• Sharing of information on key trends and developments in AI Technology Application in banking
• Sharing of experiences in AI use cases and business impact, exploring emerging AI issues, such as explainable AI, ethical AI, and data privacy.
• Promoting more active engagement with regulators across countries on emerging AI regulatory compliance framework, to support AI implementation in banking, fairness in customer treatment, and data privacy.

(c) Exploring concept and roadmap of net zero banking under COP28 conclusion and institutional investor expectation on Science-Based Target (SBT) commitment for banks through:

• Sharing of information, experience and practices of SBT commitment, banking decarbonisation target setting, roadmap development, implications on long-term portfolio transition and potential trade-off.
• Sharing of experience and best practices of member banks’ efforts and initiatives in capturing growth opportunities under net zero banking, such as renewable energy financing, corporate supply chain decarbonisation financing, product innovation for transition financing.
• Sharing of information, experience and practices in corporate lending negative screening and subsequent corporate engagement, to encourage corporate clients taking more proactive approach in decarbonisation and corporate sustainability.
• Sharing of measurement practices of climate risk as a new primary risk factor, to help banks evaluate potential impact under long-term climate change scenarios and prepare for relevant mitigation actions.
• Promoting more active engagement with regulators across countries   to provide regulatory incentives and relevant support in helping banks move toward net zero banking targets.

The Committee will be soon be approaching  member banks whom it deems to be n a position and the experience to prepare the position papers on the above-mentioned policy issues.

The Policy Advocacy Committee was created by the ABA Board of Directors in 1999 to discuss, develop and advocate positions to be taken by the association on policy issues affecting its members and the banking industry in general.

Committee Chairman Mr. Chiang is responsible for strategic planning in CTBC Bank. Before his current role, he was a Princial in Boston Consulting Group, with seven years of consulting and strategic planning experience for international and Asian financial institutions.