As Facebook Inc., Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd., and bigtechnology firms march deeper into the financial system, theworld's top central bankers say new restrictions may be needed toensure they compete fairly with traditional lenders.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known as the bankfor central bankers, said in a report on Sunday that regulatorsshould take a more comprehensive approach and extend their focus tohow tech companies can exploit customer data in anti-competitiveways.

“Big techs are still a fairly small part of thefinancial-services industry at the moment, but they have thepotential to spark rapid change,” said Hyun Song Shin, economicadviser and head of research at the BIS, which is based in Basel,Switzerland. “Big techs raise concerns that are more thetraditional domain of competition authorities and data-privacyregulators, and to make that coordination there would need to bemore of a concerted effort on the part of our politicalleaders.”