»SafeFBDC«

The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML together with eleven other project partners are receiving funding of around 10 million euros from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) for the joint research project "Financial Big Data Cluster" (FBDC). The project aims to advance applications based on artificial intelligence (AI) for the financial sector.

Launched in January 2021 under the name "SafeFBDC", the project is the first of its kind in Europe and aims to pave the way for data-driven business models in the financial sector across Europe. To this end, it enables traditional financial institutions, startups, public actors and research institutions to access relevant financial market data. "Sharing data that was previously unavailable on the market is necessary to develop solutions for various use cases in the financial sector with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence. 'Safe FBDC' thus lays a foundation for a future data infrastructure that will ensure the secure cross-organizational exchange and use of financial data by science, regulators and industry while preserving individual data sovereignty", explains Dr. Axel T. Schulte, Head of the department Purchasing and Finance in Supply Chain Management at Fraunhofer IML.

Within the project, Fraunhofer IML, with the participation of the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering ISST, will be responsible for the sub-project "Stable Supply Chain Finance" and, together with partners from industry and science, will make data from the real, physical and the corresponding financial supply chains available for the FBDC. A concrete use case "Pay-per-Use Supply Chain Finance" aims to develop financing models for the operation of increasingly important pay-per-use business models.

"We are looking forward to  complement and enhance the finance data pool in our 'Stable Supply Chain Finance' work group  by including technologies and data from physical supply chains and supply chain management applications, and making it available in secure structures that ensure data sovereignty structures. We are creating the basis for using AI-supported financial innovations to make financial supply chains more resilient and to trigger new data-driven applications in Financial Supply Chain Management", emphasizes Prof. Michael Henke, Director of the Fraunhofer IML.

The "SafeFBDC" project was initiated by the Hessian Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Housing and is part of the BMWi innovation competition "Artificial Intelligence as a Driver for Economically Relevant Ecosystems". It is also a key use case for the financial sector within the European GAIA-X initiative. In addition to Fraunhofer IML, the project consortium partners include the Frankfurt TechQuartier, Deloitte Consulting GmbH and Deutsche Börse AG.