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

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), known as the bank for central bankers, said in a report on Sunday that regulators should take a more comprehensive approach and extend their focus to how tech companies can exploit customer data in anti-competitive ways.

“Big techs are still a fairly small part of the financial-services industry at the moment, but they have the potential to spark rapid change,” said Hyun Song Shin, economic adviser and head of research at the BIS, which is based in Basel, Switzerland. “Big techs raise concerns that are more the traditional domain of competition authorities and data-privacy regulators, and to make that coordination there would need to be more of a concerted effort on the part of our political leaders.”