ABI Lab
ABI Lab is the R&I Centre founded on the initiative of the Italian Banking Association (ABI) with the aim of creating a network between banks and ICT companies.Born as a special project of ABI, in 2002 it was given the legal nature of Consortium and today it is an important centre for research and professional training on technological issues for banking.
Main activities: it does research on technologies applied to banking processes, producing analyses and models, and developing pilot projects and case studies, focusing activities on the real needs of the Italian banks; it represents a communication channel between banks and ICT Partners, to increase the knowledge of opportunities offered by technologies, creating in the meanwhile better market conditions; ABI Lab collaborates with Institutions, to develop regulation and to consider common infrastructure solutions; it organizes info/training activities on technological subjects, to share even through traditional channels the knowledge produced during the research activities. ABI Lab plays a key role in the European Banking Federation with specific reference to the R&D activities directly connected to the digital banking and cybersecurity.
ABI Lab promotes, disseminates and discusses the key topics for the Italian banking sector together with the banking community, organizing more than 80 meetings per year and 20 events per year, gathering around 5000 representative from the Italian and European banking community and business sector (ICT, Centre of research). Moreover, since January 1st 2017 ABI Lab manages the operational activities of the Italian Financial CERT (CERTFin), a cooperative public-private initiative governed by the Italian Banking Association (ABI) and Bank of Italy, aimed at increasing the cyber-resilience of the Italian financial system through an operational and strategic support for prevention, preparation and response to cyber-attacks and security incidents, and security incidents and acting as a national ISAC (information sharing and analysis center) for the banking sector. Finally, ABI Lab cooperates with a large community of public and private entities at European and international level and acts as a centralized hub of the financial sector in the dialogue with other strategic sectors and operators on cybersecurity topics.
More in details, ABI Lab is member of several international networks and working groups focused on security, on behalf of ABI and of the entire Italian banking sector, as: the EBF cybersecurity Working Group, the EPC Payment Security Support Group, the EPC Card Fraud Prevention Forum, and the European FI-ISAC promoted by ENISA, the Advisory group on Financial Services coordinated by Europol.