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It’s widely acknowledged that data is an essential tool and a commodity of utmost value, particularly for financial institutions that are essentially built on data. Do you believe that data is still considered a burden by senior management or is there a genuine change in the perception of its potential benefits?

The acknowledgement of data as an asset for any organisation is a journey and it is one that certainly needs to be embarked on by all stakeholders. Depending on the structure and culture of the financial institution; senior management involvement is pretty much staggered and the change in perception regarding the potential benefits of data is dependent on whether the affected management team has felt the pain associated with lack of data to make decisions or poor quality of data. There is a need to get senior management to intensify the efforts to align business processes and to a certain degree ICT systems to the required standards to maintain data integrity.

What are the main impediments that financial institutions come across in the implementation of a unified and rigorous data governance program? Can they be overcome? If so, how in your opinion?

Firstly, a lack of understanding as to which of the organisations’ key strategic pillars data governance will be enabler of. One needs to go through an education and awareness process to get various business or functional units over the line to understanding the importance of data governance as a sustainable business value add, which will ensure that data is captured and maintained in accordance with required standards. Secondly, the inability of Data Practitioners to bridge the gap between “data-jargon” and business meaning. The use of business friendly language has far reaching rewards to realising the success of establishing the unified data programme. Lastly, investment by senior management into key data initiatives that support deriving business value from existing sources of data. This can be achieved through the clarification of intention of use for information, rather than specifying a perception of what the management information should look like.

"[...] Change in perception(s) regarding the potential benefits of data is dependent on whether the affected management team has felt the pain associated with [...] poor data quality"

What are some of the most important internal processes that can be ameliorated by utilising data and how?

The client on-boarding process has been seen to be a burden by clients and relationship managers throughout financial institutions, due to the disparate systems used across product houses within the same institution. Having this data available in a seamlessly integrated manner improves the time taken to on-board a client, as well as providing greater comfort from a client perspective. This can be achieved by re-using existing data to populate new product systems rather than requesting the same information from the client. This has been a widely utilised concept across the industry, however getting the most up to date address data has been a challenge due to the ever changing circumstances of individual clients.

Given the complexity of data that financial institutions store and as the head of Client Data of the Standard Bank Group, how important is data coming from Social Media outlets and do you feel that it is adequately and correctly utilised across the industry?

Data obtained from Social Media outlets is important depending on the use case one would aim to apply to this data. For instance, if you want to get an understanding around demographic profiles in the social media platform versus what the client has supplied in their application or on-boarding process. So far, the industry has not yet utilised this data to its fullest potential except perhaps in the insurance industry.

Finally, what would you like to achieve by attending the 3rd Annual Data Quality and Consistency in Banking conference?

The purpose of my attendance is to enhance my knowledge on how to realistically manage and keep the high standards of data quality within a global financial institution in the ever challenging regulatory environment that we operate in.

Ahead of the 3rd annual conference in Data Quality and Consistency in Banking, we spoke with Mr. Sibusiso Ngubeni, Head of Data Management at Standard Bank about the current perceptions on data management in financial institutions, the value of unified data governance programs and the potential impediments faced during their implementation.

Practical Insights From:

Sheamus Causer
Chief Country Officer
Deutsche Bank

David Hayes
Chief Data Officer
Banco Santander

Martin Bull
Global Head of Control and Data Services
Royal Bank of Scotland

Aurel Schubert
Director, General Statistics
European Central Bank

Dr. Robert Weir
Head of Data Analysis (BCBS)
Standard Chartered Bank

About the conference:

This marcus evans conference will explore how banks can create effective data governance programmes and delegate the right responsibilities to ensure data quality and consistency, whilst complying with regulations and monetising from the data.The 3rd Annual Data Quality and Consistency in Banking conference will take place on the 23-24 February 2017 in London, United Kingdom.

Previous Attendees Include:

RBS
Société Générale
CaixaBank SA
Swiss National Bank
Barclays
BNP Paribas
Rabobank International
Goldman Sachs
Intesa Sanpaolo
Landsbankinn
ING
Standard Chartered
DNB
KPMG
UBS

About the speaker:

Mr. Ngubeni is a seasoned developer, data practitioner and Information Technology specialist with 17 years of experience and knowledge in data management through multiple disciplines across various industries. He currently focuses on reconciling data management best practice to legislative, regulatory and business requirements as Head of Client Data Management for CIB Operations at Standard Bank.

Understanding the importance of data quality and consistency in Banking

An interview with Standard Bank

Sibusiso Ngubeni, Head of Data Management Standard Bank