‘How banks, Fintechs can deploy data analytics for sustainable growth’

The Chartered Institute of Bankers Nigeria (CIBN) has said that data analytics will impact the banking sector by creating values in terms of efficiency in how they render services to increase their bottom line.

The President and Chairman of Council, CIBN, Uche Olowu said this during a breakfast session on Predictive Analytics for the Nigerian Financial Sector: Exploring New Frontiers for Value Creation, organised by CIBN’s Centre for Financial Studies recently in Lagos.

According to him, there are collaborations between Financial Technologies (FinTechs) and the banks to ensure that banks leverage the ongoing digital revolution to render more efficient services to their customers. Olowu said, “We shall ensure that banks leverage on data analytics to render more efficient services but the banks cannot do that alone because at the base are the Fintechs disrupting the retail space.

“The best banks could do now is to create that strategic alliance between the Fintechs and the banks because the ways and manners that banking services are delivered are changing its forms especially in the retail space.“The channels and the models are changing so there is the need for the banks to leverage on technology to renew their service agreement with the customers in creating value. With data analytics, the banking sector would be more efficient, and would be closer to their customers.”

He maintained that with data analytics, the banks would have a grasp of customer information and would be able to make proper use of the data to prove efficiency and increase their bottom line.

Also, the Co-Founder, Bluechip Technologies Limited, Olumide Soyombo, noted that part of the problems facing the banking sector was the inability to make use of the available data efficiently. “The problem the banks have today is that; the data is there but they are not using it efficiently. I am speaking about actionable data steps in the financial services space and how it can be used.

“The Business Intelligence (BI) system and data warehouses that the banks have today tell them what they already know but its judicious use is the problem.“The Telecommunication operators (Telcos) have become very good at creating actions from the data that they have. If you have noticed, if you spend up to a certain amount on a certain day, the Telcos can offer you a bundle and do the fulfilment right away.

“The banks do not have those channels for fulfilment, so creating actionable data sets and the desired fulfilment has been a challenge,” he said.He posited that the solution to creating actionable data sets relies on building up analytical models that takes data from the banks traditional data warehouses and BI solutions, and harness the opportunities from the inside.

“There are a lot of opportunities that the banks are missing because of their inability to harness the advantages in their data. We have many touch points with customers even within the banks but they are not taking advantages of them. Data sets could be used to offer new products to customers.

“Harnessing actionable data would help the banks to retain customers and give them more profits. Combining in-house data with external opportunities would help the banks to find and close new businesses. Retail banking needs analytics and actionable data sets as key drivers,” Soyombo added.