The financial industry has always been victim to criminal activities: Bonnie and Clyde, arguably the most infamous bank robbers of all time; Frank Abagnale, one of America’s most successful fraudsters, cashing $2.5million in the 1960s; The famous rogue trader Nick Leeson who lost Barings Bank £827m, to name a few.
Criminals will always try to steal what is not theirs and unfortunately, this technical age brings intelligent cyber threats and fraudsters which are continuously improving; our financial industry needs protection from these advanced threats.
Today the financial sector must constantly monitor risks of fraud, risks posed to customers and money laundering. In addition to this, capital markets are required to keep a close eye out for rogue trading and counter party credit risks.
Enter Data Analytics!
Importance of Data Analytics to the Financial Industry
Fortunately, this technical age brings advances to help protect against the most intelligent threats – Big Data and Analytics!
The financial industry is overflowing with unused data from many sources: transactions, real-time market feeds, social media, existing customer database and many more. This data is collected and then analysed to find odd behaviour and minimise risk.
The financial services recognise the significance of Big Data and Analytics to protect their business and customers. It is not only used to protect them against threats but also to make more profit, gain important insights into their customer’s behaviour, help provide quantifiable predictions and create new business models and services.
Big Data is a Big Help to the financial services however, with it comes a tidal wave of information that must be collected and analysed correctly. Therefore, they need sophisticated tools and technologies, like Detica’s NetReveal, and Data Analysts who are trained to help the financial market.
Detica Netreveal
There are many products which collect data in order to alert and help the financial industry but, in our opinion, Detica’s Netreveal is the best platform out there.
Detica Netreveal uses various analytics and scoring techniques to help the financial industry fight against fraud and other risks by continuously monitoring customers for signs of fraudulent activity or any other suspicious movements and prioritising these risks. The system can also detect fraudulent movements before they even enter the system!
Netreveal provides a long list of solutions to the financial industry: Anti-Money Laundering, Transaction filtering, application fraud, card fraud, mortgage fraud, trade finance fraud, the list goes on – a vital tool for the financial sector.
Data Analytics Job Market
As discussed, it has been globally recognised that Big Data and Analytics is now paramount to the financial industry and as a result, created many more Data Analyst jobs.
There has been a significant surge in demand for Data Analysts, causing an imbalance between demand for professionals and the amount of trained and experienced data analysts.
Big Data and Analytics is not going anywhere therefore, we need to invest and train professionals to aid this growth.
There are many training programmes for IT professionals to undergo which will equip them with the correct data analyst skills – it is important that these professionals take this training because Big Data is only going to get bigger!
Data Analytics is a significant specialism for Thatcher MCS and we are always on the lookout for experienced talent, if you are looking for new opportunities please upload your CV and we will be in touch.