Yesterday I was reminded of the potential for Big Data in financial services as I came across an article from Data Enthusiast highlighting three industries using this high-powered data processing technology. Retailers lead the charge with data analytics to target their consumers with laser-like precision and are seeing success from their recommendation engines. Following in retail’s footsteps with Big Data is banking. As we learned in a recent WSJ article, some of the top megabanks are beginning to explore the potential Big Data has to offer.  

As others follow in their footsteps, banks will be looking for help on where to start with Big Data, how to find value, and making those insights actionable with new product strategies and capabilities. Financial institutions have a history of using advanced analytics to mine large amounts of data for fraud detection and management.  But beyond that, the use of existing, underutilized data can provide immediate low-cost Big Data opportunities for banks.  In our recent white paper, “Big Data Planning Guide for Financial Services” we’ve highlighted some near-term opportunities for banks. The use of powerful analytic technology in banking will move beyond risk and fraud, and focus on use cases for Big Data-driven digital marketing to better analyze customers’ behaviors and drive business and marketing decisions.

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Here’s a snippet from a section of our white paper discussing a few near-term opportunities:

• Expand customer profiling, target marketing and cross-selling. Understanding and acting upon customer behaviors should be the primary focus for improving marketing performance with Big Data. For marketers and customer experience professionals in financial services, generating customer insights and understanding Voice of Customer (VOC) data enables segmentation strategies based on demographics, transactions, behaviors and social profiles. The use of Big Data analytics for profiling customer groups also helps drive value by identifying prospects that will generate and maintain profitable banking relationships.
• Keep up with the digitization of consumer behavior. The technology shift and digital disruption in the financial services industry are changing the way consumers will do banking. Banks need to keep pace with these preferred channels and customer interactions as transactional activity moves digitally. Banks must begin to be proactive as opposed to reactive to customer needs. As financial institutions mature their marketing analytics strategies, Big Data will help banks use “social listening” to understand customer sentiment, interact and communicate with customers in real time using the channel they prefer.

If 2013 is the “Year of Big Data” as IT leaders believe, where is your organization planning to make investments?

Watch our financial services on-demand webinar, “How to Improve Performance with Data-driven Decisions” for more in-depth insights and perspectives from Perficient’s thought leaders on the subject of Big Data.