The safety of client data is – not least for reasons of banking secrecy – a sensitive issue for Swiss banking. If banks shared data, they would however save hundreds of millions of francs, according to a calculation made available to finews.com.
Corporate clients increasingly are concerned about the amount of paperwork involved in the opening of a bank account and the questions they are asked to answer time and again – only to be required to assist with keeping client information up-to-date after the initial procedure is done and dealt with.
In the digital age, some argue, it would make more sense to have a center for client data management – a so-called Data Utility. Such an institution would surely serve the purpose of banks too, they argue.
Big Savings Available
PwC has made the calculations for the Swiss domestic corporate client business and found that banking could save 150 to 223 million Swiss francs ($151 to $225 million) with such a system. The findings of the study by Markus Weiss, who works for the Swiss strategy advisory branch of PwC, have been made available to finews.com.
Banks alone would save 60 percent of their spending on the client data management and 65 percent of the data maintenance. There are about 586,000 domestic corporate clients that banks are providing services to.
A Central Management System
But the finance industry wouldn’t just save money by using a central management system, the banks would also improve customer satisfaction levels and the quality of available data, Weiss said.
The center would collect data from companies required by banks, including their ownership structure. If a company wants to open an account, the center would make the data available to the respective bank via its platform.
The Big Data Treasure Hunt
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