What Is Bank Business Intelligence?

Bank business intelligence (BI) is the collection of information concerning a bank's operations to help it address issues, develop strategies, and improve services to customers. Banks can rely on an internal department to collect, analyze, and contextualize information, or they can hire consultants to provide this service. Firms across the financial industry use BI to be more flexible and powerful in the market, and numerous seminars provide instruction in how to gather and use information effectively.

One aspect of bank business intelligence involves the collection of data on customers and customer relations. This includes raw statistics on numbers of customers, types of accounts, and assets held with a given financial institution. It can also involve surveys, demographic analysis, and other measures to learn who banks with a given company and why. The bank may also perform analysis of competing institutions to find areas of similarity and difference, to learn more about the industry as a whole and its role in it.

Internal research can also be important. Part of bank business intelligence may involve analysis of personnel, from management to the mail room, to learn more about how they feel about their work. A bank that remains alert to employee concerns and issues can improve employee retention and reduce the risk of problems caused by upset employees. A bank staffer might, for instance, feed confidential information to a rival in retaliation for unpleasant working conditions.

The collection and collation of data can involve statisticians as well as people like psychologists and marketers who can help interpret the data. In bank business intelligence, banks can collect information on a specific topic, or look more generally at issues that may be relevant or important in the future. Banks can use this information to develop new products, services, and policies that will serve customers and employees more effectively.

Strong intelligence collects both positive and negative information and presents it neutrally, so bank officials have as much data as possible to work with. Bank business intelligence can reveal holes in marketing strategy or problems with corporate culture that must be addressed to keep the bank functional and competitive. It can also show where a bank is doing better than the competition in terms of employee and customer satisfaction, unique products, and other metrics. This information can be useful in documents like annual reports, where banks want to showcase their strengths for the benefit of investors.