Banker S.A. April 2014 | Page 31

INDUSTRY REPORT challenge. For many banks, only radical surgery will satisfy all these stakeholders – few banks today have a complete answer. DATA AND REPORTING Banks face three major challenges around data management. They need to hold and use the right data to get much closer to their customers. They have to meet the wide-ranging and exponential increases in demands from regulators and others for reporting and disclosures. And they need to respond to supervisory concerns that banks do not have the right data, systems and IT architecture to enable them to understand, aggregate and disaggregate, and manage their risks effectively. Meanwhile, banks also need to address the new and unforeseeable risks in data privacy and cybercrime, conflicting national laws and the impact of retrospective investigations in an environment where vast amounts of data are indefinitely available. Key to these challenges are increasing the maturity of data analytics capabilities; a clear understanding of the ownership, roles and responsibilities for data management (including retention and rationalisation); a clear plan to attack core data quality issues; and the implementation of more flexible technology solutions with greater sharing/re-use and better handling of unstructured data. GOVERNANCE AND RISK The financial crisis itself, and the problems and challenges discussed above, point to a need to upgrade significantly the governance and risk management of banks. Much work is already under way on this, but much more needs to be done. As banks get to grips with their business strategy, risk appetite, risk culture and management, they will need radically different management information that only significant investments in core and critical systems, as well as emerging analytic technologies, will provide. This article is extracted from the Europe, Middle East & Africa edition of KPMG’s report Evolving Banking Regulation 2014. The full report is available at kpmg.com/za. Edition 9 BANKER SA industry report.indd 29 29 2014/04/07 9:10 AM