by MTHULISI SIBANDA
Africa Editor
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – AFRICAN banks must develop new and appropriate data management with analytics strategies aimed at asserting their technological independence, an industry executive has said.
Bernard van Niekerk, Managing Director of RadixTrie, believes these strategies must be customised and appropriate for local conditions and regulatory frameworks.
There is belief many African banks have data management systems that were imported or imposed from outside, often with serious downsides in the African context.
CBZ Bank
“In many cases, existing models, originally imposed by parent banks from outside the country, are no longer fit for purpose locally,” van Niekerk said.
His advice comes in the context of the rapidly evolving digital world of international business in the COVID-19 era, where data is receiving increasing attention in the financial services environment and in a wide range of other industries.
“Given the potential value of data today, it comes as no surprise that many call data the ‘new oil’ of the 21st-century economy,” van Niekerk said.
He said for banks specifically, data helped identify new business opportunities as well as retain customers and acquire new ones, thus building a competitive advantage in the market.
Nedbank Head Office Sandton
Data also enables banks to optimise and streamline internal processes, improving performance and reducing operating costs.
“Risk management is improved by providing data that is required by regulators and by developing and assessing customer risk profiles to enhance fraud detection and improve credit management.”
RadixTrie specialises in data and services management, including Data Store, Data Flow and Data Evolution.
– CAJ News