On May 13 I had the opportunity to take part in the Banking Analytics-Customer Analytics and Fraud Management workshop held in Milan, where I gave a presentation on our vision for advanced customer analytics and its applications in modern banking. At the event I explained how Indra can help the financial industry address the multiple challenges facing the market, in an increasingly competitive global economy, and to efficiently develop financial products and services that will satisfy the growing demands of customers.

In this context, data, and more specifically the information that can be drawn from it, is a key strategic asset for banks. Like any other asset, data must be properly managed and utilized to benefit the organization. Addressing these challenges means designing and launching new initiatives, not only for information technology but also to adjust internal procedures at banks.

Big data is the tool that will allow banks to implement such information governance policies, opening a range of new possibilities at business units that have seen margins squeezed in recent years (payment methods, loans). Among the practical applications of these technologies are cross-sale models and baskets of financial and non-financial products coherent with purchasing trends and consumer interests, improving fraud management by optimizing credit scoring systems and therefore reducing the risk of delinquency, as well as boosting customer loyalty models.  Thus, by incorporating non-traditional aspects into business models, such as social network interaction, socio-demographic information and technology in real time, we can design more efficient action based on analytics.

In my opinion, implementing the big data or data management philosophy requires a business-centric approach. This means identifying those business situations susceptible to optimization via analytics, which analysis techniques (prediction, simulation...) are the most suitable and what information (external and internal) is required. Finally, we need to determine what technologies and tools will be capable of driving this development.