Over a third of EU financial services firms make decisions on out-of-date data

Windsor, UK, 12th April 2023 – More than a third (35%) of financial services organisations in Europe aren’t basing critical business decisions on real-time data, and instead are using assumptions which could see them lose out to the competition.

According to a new survey by InterSystems, conducted among almost 200 senior leaders within Europe’s financial services firms, an overwhelming majority (92%) of them are relying on data that is more than an hour old, with some (39%) even using data greater than four days old, which could be impacting bottom line figures.

As IT systems are likely being inundated with ad-hoc queries to keep up with volatile market changes and customer demands, this puts pressure on their performance, resulting in delays. Forty-three percent of respondents also claimed they have anywhere between 25 and 100 data and application silos, which further slows down their access to the data.

These challenges will also have other wide-ranging implications, including:

• Difficulty in obtaining a 360-degree view of customers to help enable the delivery of personalised services, currently faced by 35% of respondents. 
• Having a limited digital offering, felt by 23% as their biggest barrier to customer retention. 
• Being unable to identify an issue in time for corrective action to be taken, which 20% cited. 
• A lack of data to innovate and develop new applications, which 19% of respondents aren’t confident in doing. 

Tim FitzGerald, EMEA financial services manager, InterSystems, commented, “The data challenges being experienced by European financial services firms will be significantly impacting their ability to make accurate, real-time decisions to cope with market volatility, deliver high-value services to customers, and manage risk. By obtaining access to a 360-degree, real-time view of their data, which more than half (54%) say they want to achieve this year, firms will be in a better position to reduce churn, generate more alpha and reduce risk, but also use tools like analytics to predict what will happen and what they want to happen to drive the business forwards.

“One solution that can be adopted uses an innovative architectural approach, the smart data fabric, which accesses and harmonises data from existing systems and silos inside and outside the organisation on demand, ensuring that the information is both current and accurate. It also incorporates the ability to perform analytics on real-time event and transactional data. For financial services firms, this means they can move away from querying on offline or intraday numbers, to making decisions in the moment and claim a competitive edge.”

For more information visit: InterSystems Financial Services Data Challenges