Johannesburg, 09 Mar 2004
Banking institutions, insurance firms and other financial services companies in SA, together with their global counterparts, are faced with the urgent need to meet new regulatory imperatives - such as Basel II and the Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) smart card specification.
However, the technology with which they are expected to achieve these goals is often out of date and unsuited to the tasks at hand.
This is the view of Annette Hieber, marketing and sales director at Altron Group subsidiary, Bytes Business Solutions.
She says that with the Internet driving banking into a 24x7, multi-channel business, new technology has become a core differentiator.
"Technology, be it for the implementation of e-business, customer relationship management [CRM] solutions, or for more streamlined online banking capabilities, has gained in importance and significance in recent times," she says.
"Today, while the focus in this sector is on improved corporate governance and risk management - in line with Basel II - new-generation technology is the resource financial institutions are turning to for answers to reduce their operational costs, improve sales performance levels and minimise risk."
Hieber says customer intelligence is key to all these activities.
"Customer or business intelligence systems are central to issues that should be high on any financial services organisation`s agenda - such as the expert segmentation of the market, the understanding of the credit status of every customer and the creation of opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling.
"Customer intelligence also complements the functions of risk management systems, a prerequisite of Basel II," adds Hieber.
"Risk management systems are capable of building a more robust business, from an operations point of view. They are able to deliver demonstrable benefits in terms of bottom line profits."
She says risk management gaining in significance, particularly at this time when incidents of fraud are on the increase.
"Today`s fraud fighting systems incorporate a range of new-generation advances. These include predictive analysis tools that are commonly used in business modelling and manufacturing processes and which have now been adapted to new tasks in the financial services sector.
"These intelligent tools have been designed - and can be trained - to identify situations in which there is a probability that a fraud might be committed.
"They incorporate statistical learning theories which represent an emerging field that combines different areas of mathematics and computer science including probability, statistics, functional analysis and pattern recognition.
"Within the correct structures, including access to online, real-time information from all facets of the organisation, they will provide a host of new technology armoury for the modern financial institution to use in its on-going fight against fraud," she adds.
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