Financial institutions turn to Convera solutions for information retrieval

As a growing number of banks and financial institutions are making use of knowledge management solutions to improve their businesses, they are finding that storing information may be relatively easy, but retrieving it can be a tricky business.

Piet Dempsey, MD of Knowledge Focus, local distributor of the Convera knowledge retrieval systems, points out that the financial world is one in which keeping track of specific information is crucial.

"As Internet banking takes on greater significance, and an increasing number of businesses start using Web-based banking systems, it becomes important for banks to keep a very close eye on the movement of money to curb not only fraud but also money laundering," he says.

"Banks and financial institutions spend a lot of money creating knowledge and also have to lessen the intensity of losing knowledge as people flow in and out of the organisation. A number of companies are already video taping experts to preserve the tacit knowledge they possess before leaving the organisation," he says.

Dempsey mentions that organisations already have large volumes of information in their file rooms or information repositories. However, creating suitable corporate taxonomies (or vertical domain cartridges) can become difficult, unless proper quality control and high levels of accuracy are consistently part of the information capturing process. Inaccurate or incomplete taxonomies lead to information that has been made available on a storage system, but cannot be retrieved intelligently - or easily.

Some of Convera`s financial customers - the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, Belgium`s Fortris Bank, Rabobank Groep and Germany`s tax evasion bureau -- are using Convera`s products to overcome the retrieval problem and to help with the day to day business processes in the banks. It does not only help in locating relevant data but it helps the employees deal with typical workflow related issues on a day to day basis, thereby improving customer satisfaction and reducing cost.

The World Bank is using Convera`s Screening Room product to manage electronic archives of videotaped employee interviews as well as evaluations and training videos that can be shared among key staff. The Screening Room software digitises, indexes and stores the bank`s videotape archives so that authorised users can access the video content online, pinpoint the information they are looking for in a matter of minutes and view relevant video footage - all from their desktop computers.

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The Asian Development Bank (ADB), a multilateral development finance institution, has selected Convera to provide the intelligent "portal" search required for its new global knowledge management system. Information at the ADB is currently scattered, stored in different formats and in different locations. Using Convera`s RetrievalWare, the bank`s 2 000 employees, based in 18 countries, have faster, more accurate access to mission-critical information, no matter where it may reside.

Fortis Bank, part of Fortis, an international financial services provider active in the fields of insurance, banking and investment, is using Convera`s RetrievalWare to more effectively search and retrieve over 400 000 multilingual documents archived in a password-protected section of the bank`s corporate intranet. More than 250 employees in the bank`s Belgium headquarters use RetrievalWare to search for and access up-to-the-minute financial, political and economic data culled from dozens of sources, including newspapers, internal memos, magazines and the Internet.

The Rabobank Groep, a Dutch banking and insurance corporation, has selected Convera to provide the intelligent "portal" search required for its new Rabobank Information Portal. Information at the Rabobank is currently scattered and hard to get at. Using Convera`s RetrievalWare in combination with specific Dutch/English linguistic software, the bank`s 45 000 employees, based in over 25 countries, but mainly in the Netherlands, will have faster, more accurate access to mission-critical information, no matter where it may reside.

In Germany, the regional tax authority in Chemnitz is using Convera`s RetrievalWare search, retrieval and categorisation software to assist in its ongoing criminal investigations. Since May 2002, the Tax Evasion Bureau`s investigative departments have been using RetrievalWare to support their computer forensics initiatives by scouring and pinpointing evidence of tax fraud contained in large volumes of impounded data. Over 70 intelligence and law enforcement organisations in the US and other countries currently use Convera`s products for crime investigation and intelligence gathering and analysis.

Dempsey says that Convera`s RetrievalWare technology allows for easy taxonomy and vertical cartridge creation, making content retrieval a cinch. "Knowledge Focus, through its partnership with Convera, also offers a certification course for knowledge managers to ensure high quality taxonomies for information on either the Internet or a corporation`s intranet," says Dempsey.

As South African banks seem to be on par with the world banking arena in archival and document management solutions, Convera`s solutions have caught the eye of a number of local financial institutions, who are currently investigating the company`s knowledge retrieval software. "We are finding that there is a lot of interest in Convera`s products, as well as a very positive disposition towards the fact that we can offer local technical knowledge and support," Dempsey says.

He says Convera`s ability to cut costs through a simple, yet effective product which allows for the use of multiple languages, is perfect for South African banking conditions. "Our 11 official languages, combined with our existing banking infrastructure, make Convera`s products ideal for local conditions in the banking field," he says.