A group of 31 financial services industry players, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), has developed an open-source resource to encourage the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Veritas Toolkit version 2.0 enables financial institutions to adopt the assessment methodologies related to the Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (FEAT) principles which guide organisations on how to responsibly integrate AI and data analytics into their product and service offerings.

The latest release follows the initial introduction of the Veritas Toolkit version 1.0 in February 2022, which only focused on the assessment methodology for the Fairness principle. Version 2.0 includes an updated guide on Fairness and is the first edition to include assessment methodologies for the remaining three principles.

The main developers of the toolkit included Accenture and Bank of China, while BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, United Overseas Bank Limited, Singapore Life Ltd. and Standard Chartered Bank were involved in the pilot testing and integration of the resource with their internal governance frameworks.

“Given the rapid pace of developments in AI, it is critical that financial institutions have in place robust frameworks for the responsible use of AI,” Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer at MAS, said.

“The Veritas Toolkit version 2.0 will enable financial institutions and FinTech firms to effectively assess their AI use cases for Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency. This will help promote a responsible AI ecosystem.”

The developing group also published a whitepaper detailing how the participating financial institutions found the pilot integration of the toolkit, confirming the importance of having:

• “a consistent and robust responsible AI framework that spans geographies;
• a risk-based approach to determine the governance required for the AI use cases; and
• responsible AI practices and training for the new generation of AI professionals in the financial sector.”

Further use cases were also conducted by Swiss Re and Google, integrating the guide into its predictive AI-based underwriting process and Google Pay’s detection of Indian fraudulent payments, respectively. Both cases found the toolkit provided additional transparency both for internal processes and external customers.