LONDON -- Applying new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can increase the resilience of the financial system, Mark Carney, Governor of Bank of England (BoE) said on Monday.

"First, at the heart of the new economy, the very nature of commerce is changing. Last year, one fifth of all sales in the UK were online. Next year, it will be one quarter....This new digital economy is placing new demands on finance," Carney said at the Innovate Finance Global Summit in London.

As much of life moves online, a trail of data is created. Indeed, more data was created in the past two years than in all the years that came before. And this data is creating enormous opportunities for the new finance to serve customers better and to manage risks more effectively, he said.

To those ends, the financial sector is investing heavily in the cloud, machine learning and AI. Banking is already the second biggest global spender on AI systems (after retail) and is expected to invest a further 10 billion dollars on AI by 2020, he said.

"AI-enabled solutions are increasingly important in fraud detection as well as automated threat intelligence and prevention. As some in the audience are exploring, there is also significant potential in credit assessments, wholesale loan underwriting and trading," Carney said.

Carney said new technologies, the new economy and the new finance have the potential to unlock more sustainable and inclusive growth.

Consumers can have greater choice and better-targeted services, small and medium sized businesses can access new credit to grow, banks themselves can become more productive, and the financial system overall can become more resilient, he said.