Becoming the Next Modern Bank

Bianca Lobo October 21st, 2019

The global economy is experiencing a non-stop digital revolution due to the fast-paced evolution and adoption of technology. This, in turn, has given rise to an ecosystem known as the Global Data Sphere. A recent study estimates that by 2025, this data sphere will grow to 163 trillion gigabytes from 16.1 trillion gigabytes in 2016. (Source: International Money Fund) It will include data held everywhere from the cloud to our handheld devices, which results in complexity and opportunity for those wishing to enable a modern bank through data transformation.

The Middle East is no outsider to this massive digital disruption. In the past decade, the data flow connecting the Middle East to the rest of the world has increased by more than 150-fold. While this may seem alarming to some, it is, in turn, creating opportunities for businesses to disrupt the market, most of these businesses being in the banking and financial services sector. (Source: McKinsey)

Based on new McKinsey research, at least 80 percent of urban customers in UAE and KSA now prefer to do their banking on devices to forego the physical swiping of their debit and credit cards. They visit their local branches and call customer service hotlines only to meet specific and more complex needs, thus transforming banks to have multiple data channels.

Banks can Survive, Die or Thrive

In this situation, banks who can keep pace with their customers’ growing digital preferences will gain competitive advantages that last for years. Those who can’t deliver engaging digital technologies will lose market share and become irrelevant within three to five years. (Source: McKinsey)

Hence, more and more banks are reassessing their digital capabilities and competitive agendas as shifts in market share and the rise of digital giants threaten the conventions of the region. At this very moment, four of the largest banks in the United Arab Emirates (Mashreq, Emirates NBD, Dubai Commercial Bank, and ADIB) have already adopted this change or announced their journey towards digitalization. (Source: Zawya) 

This further emphasizes the importance for banks to adopt full-scale data transformation to be on pace with consumer trends and be able to evade the pitfalls related to digital disruption.

Challenges with achieving data transformation

However, the journey towards achieving this is marred with challenges around the sheer volume and complexity of the data involved and the requirements around compliance and risk management. Companies require flexible infrastructure to be able to ingest and transform data assets from a large variety of sources and file formats, that can scale while also having centralized data governance, management, and monitoring capabilities. And of course, let’s not forget the impact on business expenses.

Here is where a modern data management platform can help

A modern data management platform can address these challenges by providing financial institutions with a single unified solution that can integrate, catalog, and manage big data across the enterprise and various lines of business. Additionally, a modern data platform can provide the governance required to meet regulatory requirements while still providing self-service access to data to enable new and future use cases.

In short, a modern data management platform can provide:

• Metadata management to enable governance initiatives around compliance, privacy, and data quality.
• Automation and operationalization of data pipelines for scalability and efficiency.
• Self-service capabilities to remove bottlenecks and democratize data use.

Another key capability companies should consider when evaluating technologies for their data transformation is the ability to master data sets to create golden records. These golden records are used in a master data management project to build 360-degree views of customers across siloed data including CRM, loyalty, and ERP systems. This type of view is critical when trying to understand a customer’s journey to provide a unified and consistent experience across mobile, tablet, and the web.

Learn more about how Zaloni’s modern data management platform can build the foundation for digital transformation in our Arena Product Brief.

about the author

Bianca Lobo

Bianca Lobo is Zaloni's Marketing Demand Manager with a passion for helping companies overcome challenges with innovative solutions. Before Zaloni, she worked with technology companies like Oracle, Indeed and Webyog.