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Banking on Data: Beyond the Limitations of Legacy Systems

Banking on Data: Beyond the Limitations of Legacy Systems

With GFT’s help, this global bank built a Democratic Data Lab, to replace fragmented silos with a unified, cloud-native, AI-driven platform.

Data is crucial to banking success and every bank needs a robust data strategy to reap the benefits of advanced analytics and AI. GFT partnered with this multinational Italian bank to build a democratic data lab (DDL) as a strategic asset to boost data access and innovation across many projects. The bank has initiated a new paradigm to support prototyping, modeling and financial innovation in a secure, flexible environment.

50-90% time saving

Processing times have reduced by 50-90%, saving time and money and meeting compliance deadlines

Productivity boosted by 90%

The manual effort was reduced from 600 hrs to only 50 hrs

ERM rollout in record time

Fusion team cut ERM rollout from 36 to 9 months across 25 bank areas

“The DDL is far more than a technology project – it is a strategic initiative that transforms how work gets done.”

Gianluca Montani

Delivery Executive Manager

GFT

Challenge

Bridge the gap between data and the business

This global bank offers full-service banking and a host of other financial services directly and through its subsidiaries. As a world-class bank that’s committed to organic growth through innovation, it needed to adopt a new strategic approach to data.

In the age of AI, technology and business converge. Data is the universal business fuel and lifeblood of any successful bank. Consequently, every bank must adopt a strategic approach acknowledging data as a crucial business asset – one that must be carefully curated, governed and distributed.

The DDL addresses the bank’s need for universal ready access to quality data from multiple sources to be used for a growing range of purposes, including financial modeling, prototyping and analysis, particularly in the risk domain. This data democratization program seeks to close the gap between business users and data and empowers the bank to become more data driven. Specific objectives of this assignment were to:

Reduce the time-to-market of analysis and forecasting models
Recover and consolidate corporate knowledge/knowledge of solution
Unify and optimize technological solutions with IT aligned to business goals

In practice the project was about much more than data and technology – it was also about people, processes and bank culture. With the right methods and technology the bank’s DDL would evolve and become the beating heart of its data and innovation strategy. While data would be universally available and understandable it would also be better governed.

However, the bank’s data management challenge was significant with many diverse sources, formats and technologies. Data often resided in different locations with varying standards of governance within individual departments. This was typical of a large financial organization that had grown organically and through acquisition.

Although the bank has a strong internal IT function, it was clear that a new approach was required to deliver a systemic transformation based on an independent view. As a trusted partner, GFT was invited to help develop the DDL into a strategic asset for the entire bank.

Engagement

Democratic data as a pillar of bank transformation

To accelerate progress, scale the program and build cohesion, a cross-functional team was established, comprising representatives from both business and technology units, as well as specialists from GFT. At the outset, the team established clear business and technical objectives:

Autonomous access to relevant timely data
Autonomy for prototyping advanced analytical models
Shorter time-to market for production releases
Reduced overhead of provisioning lab and production releases

Convenient self-service approach
Cost reduction and transparency with pay-per-use model
Tool standardization and regulated use of technologies to optimize governance and speed

From Proof of Concept to DDL

The bank’s bold vision was to implement a catalog approach with all programs and data sources available through a single web portal. Users could choose from this catalog of tools and build solutions aligned to specific use cases.

To realize this vision, GFT delivered a proof of concept (PoC) in 2021. This established cloud as the only viable solution, provisioned through GCP. GFT tested and recommended a range of technologies to meet essential requirements for flexibility, scalability and security. Each potential use case was evaluated and appropriate tooling proposed.

This iterative process produced a technical landscape for the DDL, but a fusion team was essential to align technology and business objectives. GFT worked closely with the bank’s teams to accelerate progress and maximize knowledge transfer.

Building and commissioning the DDL was essentially about bank transformation spanning ideation, PoC through to live running. But the DDL has proved to be a worthwhile investment.

Benefit

A strategic cloud data platform that powers innovation

The DDL bridges the gap between technology and business and has become a strategic asset. As an IT-free solution, it can evolve and expand to meet emerging business needs without third-party involvement.

Most importantly, the data lab has transformed the bank’s approach to innovation and how work gets done. As a cloud solution, it has eliminated speculative investment and aligned costs with actual business use. It also encourages collaboration between end users and technical teams.

Initial deployment: bank stress testing – a universal challenge for large banks. With the DDL, new stress test models can be constructed and algorithms amended quickly and easily. Better data visualization and quality ensures regulatory compliance and improved liquidity.

Building on the success of the DDL for stress testing, the bank has deployed in many business context eg:

Procurement
Compliance
Risk Models
Security

Although the bank can run the DDL autonomously, GFT is usually involved in new deployments, including set-up and staff training.

DDL Project highlights

The Fusion team approach reduced program rollout timeline from an estimated 36 months to 9 months for the enterprise risk management (ERM) component serving 25 areas of the bank
GFT team of between 25-35
Within the first 30 months the teams refactored 74 ERM models. In parallel, the legacy SAS ERM system was decommissioned
The bank has a data visualization model for ERM and can commission new, better models more quickly, typically within hours or days as opposed to weeks or months.
Processing times have reduced by 50-90%, saving time and money and meeting compliance deadlines
Manual effort reduced from 600 hrs to 50hrs
Data quality and accessibility improved that led to more accurate and reliable insights
Adoption boosted: +70 users served, +50 areas activated, +350 processes migrated, +14TB of data moved – training session on the solution
Change requests can be actioned in half the time than was previously possible and as part of business as usual
Costs are directly aligned with business use and can be accurately allocated to the appropriate cost center

The DDL positions data as a strategic factor of production in everything the bank does. The bank remains at the forefront of AI innovation with world-class data and exemplary governance. Data and AI are always aligned to compliance requirements and business needs. GFT remains a trusted partner and is helping to evaluate new use cases for the DDL.

“The adoption of a cloud-based lab environment has sparked innovation and driven cultural and technological change, improving efficiency, agility, and opening up new possibilities.”

Head of IT & Cyber Risk

Global Bank