Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on October 26, 2021
5 min readLast updated: January 29, 2026
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Financial services must adopt data-driven strategies to stay competitive, meet customer expectations, and leverage new market opportunities.
By Romain Picard, VP EMEA at Cloudera
Currently, the financial services industry is a maze of regulatory compliance from potential GDPR reforms to rising customer expectations and hot competition from new digital entrants such as Revolut that continue to grow. As such, there is an urgent need for banks to be agile and adaptable in order to overcome the challenges they face. Suppose financial institutions fail to adjust to these changes the consequences could be costly. They risk stagnant growth, falling behind the competition, and possibly even reputational or financial damage in the case of adhering to regulations.
But, as banks find their footing in this ever-evolving landscape, what appear to be insuperable odds may in fact be opportunities for growth and differentiation. But how exactly do these financial institutions capitalise on this? The solution sits in becoming data driven.
Utilising new customers and markets
A recent study by EY revealed that, even before COVID-19 hit, consumer trust in their banks was falling. But this doesn’t mean that banks can’t win their customers trust back. By truly adopting a customer-centric approach that aligns itself with changes in customer behaviours post-pandemic, there is a genuine opportunity to regain customer’s trust. To reach this, financial organisations need a data management platform that will enable them to successfully address their customer requirements and will keep up with the business’s digital transformation efforts. Within this, the data platform must support a wide range of data sources. In doing so, it can maintain flexibility to adapt to advancing market developments while facilitating timely and relevant services to meet customer needs. This way, financial institutions can ensure they keep one step in front of the competition and continue to drive business growth.
Given the complexity and diversity of traditional and newer data sources, financial services providers need to keep up to speed. A great example is Rabobank, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company. In order to help its customers become self-sufficient and improve debt settlement, Rabobank required access to a varied mix of customer data. Despite having access to this data, drawing meaningful insight to improve their services was a different matter entirely.
Using the Cloudera platform, Rabobank could form a more complete understanding of their customers and their needs to shape a new type of customer experience. They were able to process historical and real-time data together rapidly, developing better models and, more precisely, pre-empt warning signs of a default on a loan. Rabobank can now run sophisticated machine learning algorithms and financial models to help customers handle their financial commitments, including loan repayments.
As evidenced by Rabobank, more precise business insights acquired from data exposes previously untapped opportunities in the shape of new markets and customers for banks.
Up close and personal
With any successful growth strategy, retaining customers whilst acquiring new ones is critical. As we look to 2022, consumers are digitally engaging with their banks now more than ever. As many as two-thirds of banking customers say they would convert entirely to a digital bank in the future. This highlights a new motivation for banks to build better digital customer experiences which attracts and maintain customers, resulting in long-term brand loyalty.
Data-driven insights are critical to fostering individual customer relationships. It delivers actionable insights that can be used to provide personalised, high-quality services that make financial institutions stand out from their competitor. For instance, real-time data analytics can help banks identify fraud and financial crime against their customers. This helps banks proactively provide the best service possible by ensuring their customers money is safe from fraudsters and scams. These value-added interactions will help strengthen trust in the brand and drive increased loyalty.
Powering digital transformation using data
Furthermore, in an industry where informed decision making is essential, data-driven insights are vital to enabling effective digital transformation and preserving a competitive edge. Data provides greater direction for a robust business strategy to be created as it considers any risks and showcases ways to manage them. As such, businesses that use findings rooted in data are more likely to make smarter, more informed decisions about its future. To illustrate this, consider when a bank is deciding which new markets to expand into and how to navigate this. When tapping into using data that provides sharper business insights, the door is opened for organisations to jump on new opportunities with agility and speed.
This data-driven nimbleness was one of the reasons that DBS was able to engage customers and deliver better service more effectively. DBS was dedicated to using a data-driven approach to deliver a superior customer experience, but the company’s traditional technology stack for supporting advanced analytics was expensive to scale and not flexible enough to predict customer needs across channels. With Cloudera, DBS can now efficiently store and analyse billions of events in a modern data platform and answer questions before they’re asked. As a result, DBC can more effectively engage customers and deliver a better service.
A long-lasting competitive edge
Banks must utilise the data available to inform their business strategy to keep up with new customers, competitors, and complex industry regulations. As we move forward, institutions that embrace transformation driven by data will ensure their competitive advantage, whilst driving greater business innovation. Those who do not adopt a data-driven approach leave themselves vulnerable to making ill-informed choices that could severely damage the company’s future and its trust amongst customers.
The article discusses how financial institutions can use data-driven strategies to gain a competitive edge.
By adopting customer-centric approaches and aligning with post-pandemic behavior changes.
Data helps in understanding customer needs, improving services, and identifying new market opportunities.
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