About
Prometis Lab was founded with the mission of empowering informed socioeconomic decisions for individuals, businesses, and policymakers by harnessing the immense power of administrative financial data. We aim to generate value in innovative ways that extend far beyond the confines of conventional financial services.
Our Story
The vision behind Prometis Lab originated in 2014 with a small-scale collaborative effort between Ghent University and BNP Paribas Fortis (BNPPF) focused on understanding the influence of social networks on banking loyalty. This initial project marked the foundation of a vision to combine financial micro-data with socioeconomic research that would evolve over the following years.
In 2015, the lab undertook a significant step by delivering a proof of concept (PoC) in collaboration with the Asset and Liabilities Management (ALM) department of BNPPF. The PoC examined the impact of a zero-interest-rate environment on account balances, providing valuable insights for the core tasks of ALM.
In 2020, the collaboration between BNPPF and Ghent University expanded its scope by securing a research agreement, facilitating collaboration among various researchers and projects.
A year later, in 2021, BNPPF deepened its commitment to academic collaboration by endowing Ghent University with the “Research for a changing world” chair.
Looking to the future and aiming to make a lasting impact, BNP Paribas Fortis and Ghent University jointly founded Prometis Lab to tackle socio-economic challenges at a structural level. This initiative aims to support research that will help individuals, companies, and policymakers navigate a rapidly evolving world.
Our Value Dimensions
We evaluate our contributions on several dimensions of value:
We aim to contribute to the body of knowledge on socioeconomic challenges by pushing the state-of-the-art in measurements, and (evidence for) theories explicating dynamics, behaviours, and responses.
Research Value
We aim to contribute to policy and society by investigating crucial and current societal challenges and the policy responses that try to alleviate them.
Public Value
We aim to not solely contribute to knowledge about socioeconomic challenges but also to convert research insights and theory into useable tools for practitioners.
Valorisation Value
While most of the direct policy work we do will be limited to Belgium, we aim to enable other countries and financial institutions worldwide to conduct similar research and produce similar insights for their geography. We do so by collaborating with other institutions and contributing to international guidelines and standards for socioeconomic research with micro-level financial data.