With increased demand and far wider usage, the pandemic has significantly impacted the financial sector in a multitude of ways. With stay-at-home advisories and lockdowns in place, reliance on online banking and digital commerce shot up astronomically. And the industry had to keep pace with this transactional mushrooming to stay intact, relevant and to meet the consumer requirement.

The latest OpenGovLive! Virtual Breakfast Insight on 18 September 2020 explored how the financial sector industry in the Philippines is coping with the new normal and how it can better equip itself to last the long haul.

The packed OpenGov Asia virtual hub was a testament to the relevance and timeliness of the session. Senior digital executives from across the sector joined in to discuss and explore what has been done and what can be done in the field.

Data compliance for financial organisations as essential as ensuring the flow of money in the economy

The event opened with a welcome address from Mohit Sagar, Group Managing Director, and Editor-in-Chief, OpenGov Asia and a quick round of introductions.

Mohit set the ball rolling by sharing how the pandemic has created a lot of chaos in the financial sector industry forcing the leaders to make the digital transformation as much a priority as ensuring the continued availability money in the system.

Data intelligence and governance are key issues for ﬁnancial industries in the post-COVID-19 era. Data strategy – whether to have an integrated approach or a siloed outlook – is dependent on each organisation’s culture and it’s thinking on how to survive in the current environment.

At the same time, of paramount importance in the GDPR era is for organisations to make sure their data strategy is compliant to industry and privacy regulations.

Since data compliance is of such significance, Mohit concluded by advising delegates to partner with champions in the field rather than trying to do everything in-house.

Drivers and pillars of data governance in organisations

After Mohit set the tone for the discussion, Sachin Tonk, Director, Data and Privacy Operations, Standard Chartered Bank shared his insights.

Sachin began by charting the journey of data governance and where it sits today. Data evolution is very challenging as, not only, is it complicated and complex, but the rate of change is also very fast.

He went on to address the question of why we need data governance in the first instance. The rationale sits in two main categories:

Internal demand that includes in-depth analysis, agility for growth and real-time operations. External demand that comprises new data products, GDPR, MIFID ll and M&A.

All the factors under these two umbrellas make data governance both tedious and, often, convoluted.

Sachin opined that data governance and privacy is going to be the biggest priority for organisations in the coming year. He expounded on the major pillars of data protection policy in any organisation.

The first being robust governance framework, policies and processes. This must be complemented by the second pillar I.e. proper awareness and training to create a culture with compliance in its DNA. He also added that security and IT technology come are the glue binding all components together.

Continuing in the same vein, Sachin spoke about the various essential actors involved in the governance process. Data owners, data stewards and monitors have to come together and collaborate to get the right spirit of data governance.

He then shared that the key to having a robust data governance policy is creating a catalogue of questions related to the actors. When formulating the ideal governance policy, he advised teams to go for small wins rather than opt for prototyping and then scaling up across the organisation.

In closing, Sachin noted that data governance was not a one-time activity. He emphasised the importance of monitoring progress and measuring the success of the governance policy and constantly working to improve it.

Data governance is becoming increasingly challenging and complicated for organisations

After Sachin’s informative presentation, Varghese Mathew, Business Director, Hitachi Vantara, Philippines, spoke to the topic at hand.

Varghese began by sharing some interesting statistics s about the challenges faced by organisations in the data governance domain.

Almost 74% of organisations have difficulty in evaluating quality and reliability of data, 61% have too many data sources and almost 90% need an intelligent data governance strategy.

Varghese further explained the need for organisations to have data governance in place in the current digital era.

The sheer volume of data makes its governance enormously complex, inevitably driving organisations to go tech in order to manage data more efficiently.

Other drivers include technological silos and regulations like GDPR, MIFID etc. Moreover, increasingly, countries are formulating their own regulations around data protection, making it tough for organisations to survive amid the complexity. Companies that are not compliant across the board pay a heavy price.

Varghese explained that the objectives of having a data governance policy are to manage the huge volumes of structured and unstructured data, the data being kept in silos within organisations, multiple business goals and the rapid speed and demand for compliance.

He then went on to share the Hitachi Vantara approach. The goal is to help businesses deal with different types of data silos and to make sure it is visible and governed well and on an intelligent platform where it can be analysed.

Their solutions help organisations ensure every bit of their data is available, insightful and actionable – making it easier to govern.

Varghese also explained how the Hitachi Vantara solution can help organisations make better sense of their data. It can help organisations save time and resources by not indulging in unnecessary data forensics, regulator reporting, etc.

He underscored this by sharing a case study where Hitachi Vantara helped a customer organise and make sense of their data. He shared how Hitachi helped Rabobank reduce time to discovery of data for governance and regulatory reporting by automating communication monitoring.

After Varghese’s presentation, it was time for polling questions and to involve the delegates in an interactive discussion.

On the first question regarding the current primary reason for data governance projects, a majority of the audience voted for compliance and regulatory requirements (46%).

A senior delegate from a major Philippines bank shared that she voted for compliance and regulatory requirements because once this is done, a better quality of information, data security and privacy will obviously follow.

On the next question about a centralised data compliance strategy, delegates were divided between, data being stored and managed centrally (56%) and some data being centralised while some are managed by specific department/country/ business (44%).

Another delegate shared that they voted for option one as their data is managed centrally and integrated in one place. Governance, data quality and analysis are done in one place for the consumption of management and operations.

On the final question about rating your organisation’s biggest concern in meeting GDPR requirements, a major chunk of the delegates voted for data protection: needing clearer details on how data is processed and secured with timely notification if data is compromised (57%).

A delegate reflected that data protection is the biggest priority of their organisation currently; with employees working from home, the data is more vulnerable to disruptions than ever before. Thus, it is very important to ensure that the data we are working on is fully secure and protected.

After the engaging discussions and deliberations, the session came to an end with closing remarks by Verghese Mattew.

He thanked all the delegates for taking their time and participation in the Virtual Breakfast Insight. He concurred that their ideas and reflections were in-line with the trends in the global space where Hitachi is operating. He also echoed their sentiments regarding the struggle faced by organisations to make their data accessible as well as keeping it safe and protected from a compliance point of view.

In closing, Varghese assured the delegates that Hitachi Vantara solutions were available to assist them in the same way as they have done for numerous organisations thus far.