GlobalVision Systems Solutions – Information Explorer ™

Banks have to deal with a large number of customers. Due to the complexity and the size of the transactions involved, computers must be used and a huge amount of data is produced everyday. As time goes on, the size of the accumulated computer data in a bank can easily reach hundreds of gigabytes. Searching through this massive amount of data to extract hidden but crucial information is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

To resolve this problem, most manufacturers of banking software have provided certain database query tools for their users to get data from the database. Since most banking software are designed to make the operational workflow more efficient, “process-oriented” data models are used in these databases. However, bankers are usually interested in “subjects” when they need information. To obtain “subject-oriented” information from a “process-oriented” database often requires very complicated database queries, which most bankers cannot perform. As a result, bankers are often at the mercy of their data processing service providers or their IT departments when they need information. Getting “free” information has become an expensive process to most bankers. Furthermore, bankers often need to wait for 24 hours or longer to get the information because many service providers only perform the database query operations once in the evening to save their operational costs. When bankers eventually receive the information they need for decision-making, they may have already missed the critical business timing.

To tackle this problem, some banks send their managers and offices for special training conducted by the banking software vendors. These training sessions often take a few days and are quite expensive. A recent survey shows that most bankers will not remember how to perform database queries six months after the training sessions because they are not using these skills often enough. Even if they are given a comprehensive set of user manuals, they will tend not to consult these books due to their busy schedules.

Information Explorer™ (US patent pending) is designed for bankers, who have no prior knowledge about database queries, to “intuitively” extract valuable information from a huge amount of data. It uses the natural language and simple logic concepts that enable bankers to “mine” the database comfortably. Most bankers can use Information Explorer™ after a short 30-minute training session. Almost all the users will remember how to use it even if they do not touch it for many months.

Description

Bankers are often interested in “subject-oriented” information. For example, the marketing department may want to know which customers have a saving balance of $20,000 or higher, or a CD balance of $50,000 or higher, but have no loans with the bank. These may be the potential customers to whom bankers can cross-sell a new loan product. The treasury department may be interested in knowing which CD accounts will mature before the end of this quarter because these CDs can be “re-priced” to eliminate interest loss after the Federal Reserve Bank has lowered its target rate by 50 basis points.

The vice president of the private banking division may want to know who the important customers are in the Northridge branch because he/she plans to visit them one by one in the next two weeks. The Chief Credit Officer may be interested in knowing which guarantors have guaranteed a total of more than $2,000,000 loans through different customer accounts because these guarantors may represent a possible credit risk to the bank during the economic downturn.

Traditionally, to answer these “subject-oriented” questions, bankers need to perform very complicated database analyses, which are often beyond the technical skill levels of most bankers. In fact, for some banking systems, extracting information across different products (e.g., savings and loans) is extremely difficult that even engineers cannot do it correctly.

Information Explorer™ is the perfect solution to bankers who want to get crucial information instantly and precisely. It communicates with bankers using plain English. It uses the basic “AND” and “OR” logic concepts, which most people are very familiar with, to construct an information mining instruction. As a result, a very complicated syntax, such as “((X AND Y AND Z) OR (P AND Q AND R)),” can be easily constructed by most people without any training. A new user can master the information mining skills in a matter of minutes.

In order to make sure that users will not forget how to use it later, Information Explorer™ records the user’s past procedures in constructing the data mining instructions so that a user can always refer to his/her own records to instantly recover the skills he/she has learned before. Through this innovative approach, users of Information Explorer™ do not need to consult any user manual and will never have any difficulties in using it in the future.

Moreover, Information Explorer™ enables user to smoothly explore related information across different products. Besides information, it also provides special action-oriented features such as mail merge, mailing label generation, e-mail, campaign, evaluation, etc. so that bankers can effectively initiate a series of dynamic actions with Information Explorer™ .

Conclusion

Information Explorer™ empowers bankers to fully harness the power of information technology. Natural language and simple logic concepts are adopted to make Information Explorer™ extremely easy to use. Being equipped with the most up-to-date, precise and comprehensive information at all times through Information Explorer™, bankers will be able to succeed with great confidence in the highly competitive banking industry.