Responding to Friday's announcement by the FSA on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Tom Scampion, partner in Deloitte's information & technology risk practice, commented: “The volumes of customer data held by the financial services industry are well documented. Equally well documented is the challenge organisations have in managing these volumes, as demonstrated by high-profile data losses in recent years. Having handed out a number of fines for these incidents, the FSA is now turning its attention to the ability of organisations to not only protect, but to structure customer data.
“Financial services firms have long sought to develop and maintain a consolidated view for each customer to improve cross-selling, reduce both cost and risk and improve efficiency. Following today's announcement by the Financial Services Authority, this has now become a regulatory requirement for all deposit takers in order to facilitate faster payouts to customers should these institutions run into difficulty.
“The costs to the industry associated with implementing a 'Single Customer View' (SCV) have previously been estimated at around £900 million over a five-year period. However, based on our recent experience of performing a number of SCV projects in the financial services industry, there is every reason to believe that this is a conservative estimate. The challenge for many in the industry will be in realising the benefits associated with creating a ‘Single Customer View’ so that a regulatory requirement can be transformed into a competitive advantage.”
