Big data in retail banking

The challenge

CACI were approached in 2003 by a British retail brand about to launch their first personal banking products including credit and debit accounts. They had not previously had a solution in place to store data and were looking for a data warehousing solution that would also support their marketing efforts.

Requirements included business intelligence and management reporting capabilities, including a campaign analytics framework, which led CACI to provide a managed service that would fulfil core functions, including a database management system, a data warehouse and daily finance marts for weekly credit risk evaluation.

The solution

Working in close collaboration from day one, CACI were able to establish the Bank’s requirements with a solution design and project plan. Oracle database, Informatica ETL and MicroStrategy BI reporting were recommended as the most suitable tools for system inception, alongside the campaign marketing tool and SAS analytics.

To ensure quality in delivery and effective controls over delivery, CACI planned and participated in code reviews, system testing and Disaster Recovery testing. CACI implemented Penetration testing and document findings, appointing a dedicated Project Manager as a single point of contact and escalation point for the resolution of issues.

The technical solution was constructed to the Bank’s exact requirements. Services provided included a Service Desk (ITIL compliant), Extract Transform and Load, provision of Basel reporting and provision of data to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. CACI executed marketing campaigns and daily finance reporting providing liquidity management output, based upon data. The data modelling and analysis services were provided with the execution of monthly finance reporting with consultancy services to analyse, design, develop, test and Quality Assurance, managed by an experienced team of CACI analysts.

CACI fulfilled delivery on-time and on-budget providing service management including 24/7 Oracle database administration, upgrading the warehouse database management system. Reporting client tools, processing data 24/7 into the corporate data warehouse, keeping it current, accurate, secure and available and running development projects allowed the Bank to receive and process data feed files from new suppliers and changing suppliers when required.

CACI’s project implementation methodology incorporated a realistic project estimate, detailed project planning and project management. The solution involved databases ranging from 100 GB to 4 TB in size, a database management system, data management and reporting systems and a strategic data warehouse system. CACI used their release management process guiding each stage through to completion. A mandatory code review and deployment checklist with mandatory testing along with a mature change management process and dress rehearsals prior to project implementation were also included, completing the project on-time and on-budget.

Over the past year, the database space has grown from 4 TB to 6.5 TB, as new data from website activities have been ingested, creating a steady growth rate of 40 GB monthly.

The results

The bank was supported post-implementation by CACI’s Managed Services Programme combining regular reviews, call support of load processes and service availability.

CACI delivered the system integral to business operations satisfying the marketing, financial and regulatory requirements. A stable, secure and reliable system ensured that timely data was available to support all business functions and all 410 users.

In the years since, the data warehouse now stores 80% of the Bank’s data, enabling a single view of the customer across 54 million accounts and 3.7 billion transactions. With 68 data sources being ingested daily, the bank is able to market to existing and new customers in the best way possible, as well as manage their customer data to provide an excellent service.

The Bank have since engaged CACI for multiple projects across their data needs.