Big Data Making Big Impact in Banking? Posted on : Sep 04 - 2015

There are countless stories of how big data helps organizations—whether it’s a matter of competitive advantage, driving innovations or fueling the bottom line. IT leaders understand its significance. According to the recent CIO Survey, an astounding 72 percent of the respondents within the financial services sector alone believe that big data has a positive impact on their rate of innovation.

As big data grows within financial services, two primary types of data are taking center stage: on-grid and off-grid.

By definition, on-grid is all the data a bank has about its customers — all the insight it receives from them when they talk to the bank, whether it’s in social media, web interactions or any other direct communication. However, off-grid data (representing 80 percent) is generated when customers talk about the bank without actually talking to the bank—for instance, when a customer relates opinions on Reddit or in a chat room.

Historically, banks have analyzed on-grid data only – but, in doing so, they need to understand how bias influences the data.After all, if a customer is truly unhappy, that person’s comments will be far more authentic in informal settings and when unsolicited or through informal channels.

The good news is that future opportunities are virtually limitless, especially in efforts to improve fraud detection and prevention—a huge priority in the financial sector. For instance, consider the possible creation of a utility that aggregates information for analyzing the entire industry for trends and patterns in fraud. When a new attack or scam surfaces, the information will immediately be shared with every bank. That way we would no longer see three banks discovering the same problem, respectively, months apart and having to deploy individual solutions. Just the cost and time benefits of independent discovery would make creating such a utility well worth the effort. This applies an approach similar to that of antivirus software in computers – once identified, all relevant points are informed and can act to prevent damage.  View more