The digital world has transformed banking and continues to revamp its methods of product delivery to its customers. Generally, banking involves reviewing a vast amount of data collected from various customers and transactions recorded in the banking system. External sources such as mobile service providers, social networks and credit bureaus add to the abundant existing data. To fully realize the potential of bank data, the entire data lifecycle needs to be properly managed and administered from data collection, recording and monitoring to visualization, analysis and interpretation. Data sets can significantly improve a bank's profitability and sustainability if managed effectively.

Financial organizations can use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to effectively make intelligent business decisions and translate them into the “data intelligence” they need to remain competitive and profitable. According to Edler Panlilio, Managing Director, SAP Philippines, three important aspects to help banks obtain an efficient data strategy and obtain the most out of this data are:

• Data management with data ownership. This includes data collection, storage, structuring, auditing, cleaning and monitoring.
• Reporting and visualization. This includes creating intelligent views of bank performance, portfolio quality, employee productivity and other categories needed to drive the business.
• Data analysis, the most challenging but most valuable part of a data strategy. Analytical models developed by banks enable banks to anticipate customer behaviour, better understand their needs and preferences, and proactively manage the entire business.

Union Bank of the Philippines (Union Bank), one of the first banks in the Philippines to embrace technological innovations, utilizes data intelligence as part of its data strategy to further accelerate its digital initiative by working with SAP to create a new banking model that supports customer-centric services. Union Bank, with the help of SAP Data Intelligence, integrated the first known "Data Science Factory" model into their systems in Southeast Asia’s (SEA) financial sector. Additionally, this model will help banks achieve improved business management, improve internal processes, and gain a better end-to-end perspective on all operations. Union Bank's implementation of SAP’s comprehensive Data Intelligence solution for its new digital framework has transformed the bank’s distributed data sets into important data insights for superior innovation. 

According to SAP, banks using this solution can effortlessly retrieve the most relevant data through enhanced metadata tags, user-generated ratings and comments, and an integrated business glossary. In addition, banks can connect data silos to build enterprise data structures that increase visibility across multiple data assets.

SAP Data Intelligence serves as Union Bank’s governance and internal control processes. Additionally, it helps Union Bank streamline operations and manage regulatory compliance and risk management parameters in its new digital framework. Data Intelligence also enables financial institution’s administrators and internal staff with important information and tools to deliver exceptional customer service. For example, using the Data Science Factory model, all the data and insights collected by Union Bank will help leverage AI and help customers better understand their financial capabilities. In addition, banks can protect the privacy of customers while facilitating responsibilities such as loans, savings and other services.

As banks typically process large numbers of documents on a daily basis, Union Bank recognized the need to improve efficiency and internal communications. To address this challenge, banks are currently using SAP Signature Management by DocuSign to automate workflows from simple contracts to the most complex transactions such as loan applications. According to DocuSign, users can easily send, review and sign documents anytime, anywhere using network support for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile.

Organizations from all industries, including banks and financial institutions, are embracing proactive initiatives and innovative solutions to retain their customers. With intelligent banking becoming one of the most important trends in the industry today, banks and financial institutions in the Philippines look to adopt AI-enabled technology for digital transformation. In addition to customer retention, banks also contribute to the expansion of financial inclusion and provide better banking experiences.