Data analytics set to feature in financial services sector

Data analytics is already used across a number of industries, but 2015 could see it used extensively in the financial services sector.

According to research by IDC, next year will be the year many companies experience the benefits of using data analytics outside of the traditional marketing sector.

It could provide valuable data for banks that will enable them to upsell their products, with existing customers being encouraged to take on more accounts, credit cards or loans.

IDC is also predicting that globally data analytics will prove crucial for the financial services rather than just in the UK and Ireland.

This means the leading banks will increase their current spending on big data and analytics – leading to a threefold rise in budgets for on-premise solutions between 2015 and 2020.

However, the research by IDC highlighted a lack of appropriately skilled staff in the sector and this lack of talent could persist for a number of years. This could see many firms developing very attractive salary packages to help ensure they can attract qualified staff from home and overseas.

It is also likely that companies already employing big data and data anyaltic experts will need to ensure they focus on staff retention otherwise they could risk losing talent to rival firms.

Miya Knights, senior research analyst, EMEA at IDC Retail Insights, explained: “A proliferation of sources of information from competitors, user-generated content, social media and sensors has created massive volumes of structured and unstructured data available for analysis, which is increasingly required in real time.

“Big data presents a challenge and an opportunity to derive value from this analysis to inform business insight on four fronts, identified by IDC as customer loyalty, revenue growth, cost reduction and new business models,” she added.