Banks Should Consider Dynamic Data Stores
Mitchell Glassman (pictured to the right), Director, Deloitte Consulting (New York)
Until recently, Banks didn't have a complete understanding of the regulatory requirements and the systemic impact of IT systems on their own balance sheets, or of their global effects on customers and competitors. Most banks support multiple applications and systems, and the quality of the data can vary from one to the next. Banks need to figure that out, and they need to know what that can mean for other parts of the bank that use those systems. Banks are not prepared to address that challenge -- they don’t know who owns the contracts or operates the systems. During a time of stress, this affects their ability to continue "business as usual" operations.
Banks need clearly defined legal entities and service agreements, and an understanding of the overall impacts of compliance on internal users, customers and stakeholders. All of these components create risk. There are three key areas where banks should focus to achieve this:
First, banks need to clearly identify their technological platforms or data, including the owners, users and providers of services. Currently, many don’t have modern systems. Second, for the capabilities that don’t exist, banks need to come up with different scenarios and create a model for them. Third, it's difficult to understand all the applications that support the business; therefore, there's a need for additional, more advanced reporting mechanisms.
One area where banks should look for help complying with increasing regulations is dynamic data stores, which pull the critical information together and index it by various measures, such as legal entity, region and business model. Banks already are adopting collaborative software tools that are shared and accessed freely across platforms and businesses to improve access to internal data.
