Banking technology company Finastra is enhancing the rollout of its customer data strategy as clients face new competition.

As part of this effort, the London-based company hired Lisa Fiondella as its first-ever chief data officer in November. Her mandate is to help client banks and institutions use customer data more effectively, allowing them to build personalized products and more easily underwrite new customers.

Fiondella told Bank Innovation that though many clients look after large customer data repositories, they’re often not in a position to use that intelligence to build contextually relevant products and services because of legacy tech debt.

“[Clients’] biggest challenges around data are that they historically have had siloed systems that don’t talk to each other,” she explained. “Even if [those financial institutions] wanted to bring the data together, it would be very difficult.”

As part of its offerings for financial institutions, Finastra is beefing up the capabilities of Fusion Fabric Cloud, a cloud platform that allows Finastra’s clients to share customer data with third-party providers. It’s a sandbox approach that’s intended to help banks and other client institutions take advantage of innovations developed by startups, noted Fiondella.

“What [those banks need] is a modern technology stack that allows them to bring in any application [they] need to help your customer relationships, and you want to get access to your data, so you know more about your customer so you can serve them better,” she said.

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Finastra is also looking to build solutions for clients based on what they know about their customers. For example, if a client requests an analytical product that could assist with customer churn management, Finastra would be able to build a model for them using its tools.

In addition, Finastra is helping its clients underwrite customers based on Finastra’s business intelligence stack garnered from its anonymized analysis of client information. For example, in October, Finastra launched Fusion Mortgagebot Data Insights, which offers institutions intelligence on mortgage borrower behavior and demographic trends.

“[We have access to] anonymized, aggregated data that we can make available to our clients so that they can execute their business better, make better decisions and manage their existing client relationships,” said Fiondella. Finastra works with more than 9,000 clients globally.

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