Open Source in Finance Forum New York 2024

In the rapidly evolving landscape of ESG data, financial institutions face the dual challenges of data fragmentation and security. This session will explore OS-Climate's innovative use of open source technologies, including Apache Iceberg, Apache Spark and the Unity Catalog, the industry's only universal catalog for data and AI, to enable secure and efficient ESG data sharing across financial institutions. Through this session, participants will gain insights into the strategic benefits of leveraging open source tools for ESG data management, including enhanced data security, governance, and interoperability. In particular we will demonstrate how Unity Catalog Unity's multimodal interface supporting various data formats and engines supports compatibility across diverse data ecosystems to facilitate seamless integration and governance of data assets, allowing financial institutions to not only meet regulatory compliance but also to harness ESG data for strategic advantage.

Financial Services Institutions (FSIs) face unique challenges in measuring and reducing their technology carbon footprint due to the scale and complexity of their IT estates. This session provides a broad overview of the challenges and existing standards and resources (including Green Software Foundation SCI, CNCF Kepler etc) - including challenges in terms of trust and comparability. To address many of these challenges the Technology Carbon Standard (TCS) has been created. TCS is an open source framework inspired by the GHG Protocol, provides a standardized approach for FSIs to classify, analyze, and benchmark their tech-related emissions. In this session, we'll discuss how FSIs can apply the TCS to identify carbon-intensive areas, prioritize reduction efforts, and align with regulatory requirements and voluntary commitments. We'll share case studies demonstrating the practical application of the TCS in the financial services context and explore how open collaboration can accelerate the adoption of sustainable IT practices across the industry.

Business Use Case: Mortgages & Flood Risk
In this presentation, we will demonstrate how to practically integrate physical risks such as flood, fire, and wind into the core systems and workflows of lenders. Our live user case will be on the impact of Flood Risk on Residential Mortgage lending, showcasing an end-to-end workflow that addresses this critical issue.
Key Objectives
Our session will explore core activities, including data and model sourcing, ingestion, normalisation, calibration, and end-user adoption. We'll explore how these processes can be applied to crucial tasks such as management and regulatory reporting, analysis for business decision-making, and risk and finance capital and solvency management.
Technical Challenges Solved
To solve this complex problem, we've addressed several major technical challenges. First, we've achieved Frictionless Data Integration by leveraging the work completed by OS-Climate members to manage data sourcing and curation through their Data Mesh initiative.
Next, we've ensured Frictionless Application Integration by delivering solutions that adhere to the
FDC3 (FINOS) desktop interoperability standard, accelerating end-user testing and adoption. We've also focused on Product Alignment and extension, integrating OS-Climate Functional Componentry with market-leading commercial offerings. Lastly, we've encouraged the use of Open and Commercial Components, promoting best-in-class commercial data and model products through open APIs and OS-Data contributions for enhanced end-user access.
Why It Matters
In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the frequency and scale of damage to physical assets. Given that these assets represent one of the greatest stores of wealth globally, any potential degradation in their values could have serious economic consequences. This issue extends beyond individual firms, potentially affecting the viability of markets, challenging regulators, and impacting governments on a systemic level.
Advantages for Financial Institutions
By adopting our approach, financial services organisations can swiftly translate C-level strategic goals into tangible changes across business lines and group functions. This method offers substantial improvements in several key areas: dramatically reduced time to market, enhanced scalability of solutions, higher rates of end-user adoption, and significant reductions in both build and maintenance costs.
Financial institutions can position themselves at the forefront of industry innovation in addressing
the convergence of traditional and sustainable finance through physical risk integration. This
proactive stance enables them to effectively manage emerging challenges while capitalising on
new opportunities in an increasingly complex market landscape.