A poll of nearly 800 bankers by Accenture suggests that half aren’t doing enough to validate and ensure data quality.
Insufficient oversight of ever-growing mountains of data is leaving banks vulnerable to false insights that could lead to bad decisions. Accenture found that over 9 in 10 of the bankers surveyed are confident in the integrity of the sources of their data.
Trust, however, is not enough. 11% of the bankers surveyed trust their data is reliable, but don’t validate it. 16% try to validate their data but aren’t sure of the quality. 24% validate the data but recognize they should do a lot more to ensure the quality.
This attitude to data does not bode well for some banks in the digital economy. Bankers will have to address this new vulnerability by strengthening their capabilities in three key aspects of data management: Provenance, Context, and Integrity.
More than three-quarters of respondents are concerned with the new risks that automated decision-making brings, including fake data, external data manipulation, and inherent bias. Five in six bankers increasingly count on data to make critical decisions.
“Given that four in five bankers that we surveyed said they are basing their most critical systems and strategies on data, it’s critical that the data can be verified and validated”, said Alan McIntyre, head of banking practice at Accenture.
Operational blockchain systems are expected to be live in 2.6 years, according to bankers that will count on it to provide cost-effective replacements for legacy core banking systems. And 70% expect the technology to be critical or very critical for their organizations over the next three years.
Ultimately, legacy systems can be shuttered and decommissioned with the emergence of a blockchain-based framework.
Singapore has appointed management consulting company Accenture to manage and develop a prototype using three distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms to help create a solution for interbank payments.
Nearly 80 percent of bankers believe that Artificial Intelligence will be deployed within the next two years, although many are worried about regulatory and ethical standards.
“AI decisioning processes can’t be a black box; banks need to adhere to and provide the same transparency as they do with any other employee to ensure regulatory compliance, and to earn customer trust”, commented Peter Sidebottom, Managing Director of strategy in Accenture’s FS practice.
Earlier this year, Accenture launched a cloud-based data analytics utility to improve the risk-management of U.S. banks.
