In the ever-changing world of global finance, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen's testimony before the Committee on Financial Services on February 6, 2024, offers valuable insights into the current priorities and strategies of the U.S....
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is facing a real-life Kobayashi Maru, a catch-22 situation from Star Trek where there seems to be no way out. Tasked with the immense responsibility of distributing funds to pandemic-affected businesses through...
In the echoing corridors of Pearson Specter Litt, a high-stakes legal battleground dressed up as a law firm, the aroma of mahogany furniture battles with the scent of freshly brewed coffee for olfactory supremacy. The TV drama, "Suits," revolves...
Immerse yourself in the enchanting realm of Barbie Land, where a tapestry of cultures and experiences intertwines to create an extraordinary and magical atmosphere. Among the countless captivating districts, one district shines with the allure of...
It was more than half a century ago that Don McLean released American Pie, and it’s served as an anthem to successive generations. It’s a paean to the day the music died, and so filled with references that the trivia questions never stop. Sure, we...
IBM has long been seen as a national treasure and iconic global brand, and with good reason. In an industry that regularly chews up and spits out startups and long-lasting players alike, this storied corporation is now 111 years old. It’s changed...
A generation ago, when the Internet first arrived, it shrunk the gap between big companies and SMBs. Those smaller firms could suddenly leverage a new arsenal of online tools to compete on research, product development, customer outreach,...
“The future is here already, it’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson, sci-fi author of Johnny Mnemonic. The film was in theaters in 1995 but the setting of the movie was today – 2021!
The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) 2020 is a very big deal. For the entire financial services industry, down to the smallest credit unions and neighborhood banks, it changes the game completely. Institutions that haven’t yet incorporated this...
In these distressing times, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a perfect example of whatcanhappen when the private and public sectors step up together. The economy is staggering from a global pandemic, the government has to allocate...
During the post-prohibition era in the 1930s, bars offered free lunches to their patrons to get them to buy drinks. 40 years later, Milton Friedman famously summed up the study of economics with the quip – “There is no such thing as a free lunch” or...
Last week, the US Department of Treasury published its 2020 Strategy document that "employs a whole-of-government approach to guide the public and private sectors in addressing 21st century illicit finance challenges." The report highlights the ...
Prior to 2018, regulators resisted recommending the use of Machine Learning (ML) based Artificial Intelligence (AI) for AML compliance. There was a mindset shift in mid 2018 indicating that proceeding with caution in implementing AI approaches for...
Westpac Bank in Australia is facing one of its gravest crises from systemic AML/CTF failures over a 5-year period that contravened the AML/CTF Act on over 23 million occasions.
The human brain is the most intelligent organ that has ever existed. In fact, some scientists refer to the human brain as a “natural supercomputer.”
In last week's article, we discussed Rules Engines vs Machine Learning for AML/BSA/CFT compliance. In this article we differentiate legacy AML process from modern a Agile Compliance approach. The legacy AML process consists of...
This is a vexing question and it is at the heart of myriad problems with the current approach to AML/BSA processing. Last year, in conversation with a banking regulator, he observed, that "when a bank buys AML software they also buy an AML business...
We have been asked to explain the differences between rules-engines and machine learning for anti-money laundering/banking secrecy act applications on numerous occasions. This question typically arises from the compliance team, wanting to better...
Last month the US Office of the Comptroller of Currency released its 2019 Semiannual Risk Perspective report. While the report is bullish on the strength of the US economy and the banking sector as a whole is buoyant, the associated risks give cause...
An activist government pushing banks to become more innovative in order to fight terrorism? The idea is both intriguing and baffling—and for those of us who’ve long wanted this kind of encouragement, it’s also heart-warming.
Here’s the premise: A...
On the same day that the prosecution rested its case against Paul Manafort, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tucson, AZ got a seven-year sentence against a fraudster for a money-laundering scheme; a former Microsoft employee was sentenced to 18 months...
In 1994 Stanford Federal Credit Union was the first US financial institution to offer internet banking to all its customers. Since then, digital banking has rapidly adopted newer technologies to automate business processes and simplify customer...
There is more hype, discussion and disagreement about Blockchain than any other technology impacting financial services today.
In a blog post last month, I listed some of the major challenges facing smaller financial institutions. One of them is the fact that customers are demanding more and more. It is hard enough for community banks to meet regulatory requirements and...
A day in the life of the gentleman banker was once described by the 3-6-3 rule – accept deposits at three percent, loan money at six percent and tee off at the golf course at 3 p.m. The financial services industry can rightfully state that it has...
Introduction
Community banks need to innovate. Most of us accept that. Too much is changing around us, too many other players are jumping on our turf. Regulators seem out to strangle us. And customers demand more and more.
Banks are dependent upon models of all kinds. This is because reality is much too complex for us to understand well enough for perfect predictions of the future. Models are used as a simplification of reality.
Whose job is it to manage operational risk?
This morning I had the...
A FinTech CEO who doesn’t understand risk management is at a crushing disadvantage.
Why?
Banks don’t just have to be risk-aware. They are in the business of managing risk on other people’s...
There are over 6,000 community banks in the US. Many of these manage significant assets, and have meaningful IT budgets. Their small business and consumer customers are looking for competitive digital banking services.
Machine Learning (ML) and AI are at the bleeding edge of data science, deep learning and predictive search today.
Many Fintech firms selling to banks have unrealistic expectations. Bankers are born skeptics, and banks don’t change easily. Selling to banks is hard!
Today there is a strong move towards “Consumerization of BI” as business users are demand the same speed, dashboards and ease of use from their workplace applications as their at-home software.
As a C-level executive, it’s becoming clear to me that NoSQL databases and Machine Learning toolsets like Spark are going to play an increasingly big role in data-driven business models, low-latency architecture & rapid application development...
Bitcoin is about the birth of a new monetary ecosystem. Like any ecosystem, it will have its share of winners and losers. The Bitcoin “Innovative Disrupters” are those that have the best odds at being winners.
Do Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies provide opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs to create real value? Bitcoin has proponents and naysayers. What is it really about?
In this summer’s blockbuster movie “Edge of Tomorrow,” a PR executive played by Tom Cruise goes through innumerable time loops to become a soldier by being reborn every time he is killed. In the context of software startups, successful products are...
The automated vote-counting machine was designed by Thomas Edison in 1869 to replace roll call voting in the U.S. Congress and was never used. The motor scooter was designed in post-war Italy to be a motorcycle for women and became a revolutionary...
The summer of 2015 marked the release of the blockbuster Sci-fi movie, “Terminator Genisys,” which grossed a record $350 million at the box office and further popularized the notion of time travel. In addition to sequels and prequels, Hollywood has...
Scorecards, Dashboards, Heatmaps, Alerts, Management Reporting, Operations and Transactions Reporting are all enterprise example of data visualization outputs.
Game on….I think we just witnessed a big next generation leap in Healthcare Data and Analytics. Apple jumped into the health information business on June 2, 2014, launching both a new health app and a cloud-based health information platform with...
The simplistic model of an enterprise was that of collection of business processes. Those that executed processes efficiently with the fewest people did better than those that did not. The IT industry dutifully delivered to this metric by...
Insight, not hindsight is the essence of predictive analytics. How organizations instrument, capture, create and use data is fundamentally changing the dynamics of work, life and leisure.
Analytics is changing expectations and business strategies....
In Memory Data Grid (IMGD) is a data structure that is being increasingly cited as a solution to the problem of scaling big data applications. Unlike in-memory applications, IMGDs distribute only the data across RAM over multiple servers. With...
“Meeting adjourned!” the chairman announces. In one swift move, I’m out of my chair and walking toward the door ahead of the other board members when I hear my name, and there’s no mistaking that voice.
“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet” is attributed to Damon Runyon, who wrote about Broadway in the 1940s. Some investors use this as a guiding principle for predicting winners and losers....
In the movie “Minority Report,” set in 2054, Tom Cruise plays the captain of the “PreCrime” police force, which uses “precognitive” abilities of mutants to stop crime before it happens. Silicon Valley futurists have sometimes used this reference in...
To meet demand for faster innovation around analytics, CFOs and CIOs are rethinking their silo’d sourcing strategies and looking at new way of doing things via Outsourcing Analytics.
The buzz and hype around data…small data, big data, machine data, social data, mobile data….is relentless. As a result there are a lot of new initiatives and companies. I have been asked repeatedly by a lot of entrepreneurs and strategy teams about...
Predictive Analytics in the form of predictive search (automated deduction or augmented reality) is now entering the mainstream.
Just like Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce and Business to Business (B2B) e-commerce…we are seeing a similar distinction emerge in Big Data.
While social, consumer, retail and mobile big data get a lot of PR, the big data business cases...
In a parody of Start Trek, Silicon Valley technology companies describe their business goal as “Scale, the final frontier…”. Mid-market companies, defined as those having 100-2500 employees,may indeed provide an opportunity to emerging technology...
Health expenditures in the United States neared $3.0 trillion in 2013 which is over ten times the $256 billion spent in 1980. Almost 15% of U.S GDP is estimated to be spent on healthcare.
Various organization define Big Data differently. Some use “petabytes of data” as a benchmark to isolate big data from other normalized and structured data sets that exist within an organization. However, this measure quickly boxes big data...
The billion dollar question facing executives everywhere: How do I monetize my data? Whatsmall data or big data monetization strategies should I adopt? Which analytical investments and strategies really increase revenue? What pilots should I run to...
As humans, our behaviors are extremely erratic and complex. That’s why Predictive Analytics on human behavior is so fascinating as we are able to make sense of something that seems intangible. How does the human...
Global CIO request — “I want to build a data-as-a-service offering for my data” to the rest of the organization.
Marketing to customers after they have abandoned your brand is expensive and doesn’t yield great results. It is critical to understand which of your customers will abandon your brand tomorrow,...
To roadmap Wall Street priorities for 2013, we have been having an interesting set of meetings recently with MDs and leading architects in various banks and investment services firms.
Last week Carpe Datum Rx sat down with Laurie Beasley, the CEO of Beasley Direct Marketing. Laurie is the president of the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California and is also a faculty member at the Online Marketing Institute. She has...
Business Perspective Solutions need data scientists. This infographic from EMC is a good illustration of data science talent are and where to find it.
“By 2014, 30% of analytic applications will use proactive, predictive and forecasting capabilities” Gartner Forecast
In his book Permission Marketing, Seth Godin referred to email marketing as “the most personal advertising medium in history".
Simply astounding: Did you know that every 60 SECONDS, a tidal wave of unstructured data is being produced, consumed and archived. As you read this ask yourself: what does this mean?
As I meet customers, it’s dawning on me that IT leadership is not paying attention to fundamentals like Enterprise Data Architecture.
At the Analytics Executive Forum, I facilitated a session on Omni-channel analytics. It struck me how every leading consumer facing firm seems convinced that mobile is becoming the dominant B2C interaction channel. Mobile is the gateway to insight...
In the Aesopian fable of the one-eyed stag, a deer overcomes his visual handicap by grazing on a cliff near the sea with his good eye facing the land. Since all his known dangers were on land, this keeps him safe from...
Big Data is all about technology and business model innovation. Why? Because, a lot of next generation business models are DATA centric. Almost all companies talk about the need to mine their customer and transaction data. Using a test-and-learn...
“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.” With this quote, Charles Darwin clearly defined today’s business analytics imperative. In this...
Marshall McLuhan‘s enigmatic phrase – the medium is the message- from the sixties gives him credit for predicting the World Wide Web 30 years ago. He could have just as well have been talking about Data Visualization for Business Analytics. While...
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) for new enterprise customers can be daunting using the traditional sales and marketing process. Very successful organizations such as Brighttcove Jive and Salesforce have spent more than 50% of their revenues as...
Brooks Brothers is investing in tools & testing to improve the online experience – and ↑sales. In a test involving one product category page: men’s shirts. The retailer using Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews software, used customer reviews to sort...
In the ever-changing world of global finance,...
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is facing a...
In the echoing corridors of Pearson Specter Litt,...
