Data, security & value in payments

The global payments industry is in the midst of a revolutionary shift led by new technology and the use of data.

How financial institutions and corporations mine data and ensure its security and authenticity will help them navigate through these challenges in a multinational world, ANZ Chief Data Officer Emma Gray says.

“Data is incredibly powerful if used for business insight and customer benefit,” she says. “Companies have a delicate balancing act to maintain customer privacy on one hand and business innovation on the other.”

In the United States, the data discussion has leaned towards the innovation side of the debate while Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation has been accused in some quarters of stifling business creativity due to the onerous compliance requirements.

“There’s a real risk innovation suffers because of the absolute need to address privacy concerns,” Gray says.

Australia’s position is still evolving.

“There are still many issues to address to ensure we protect consumers from the downside of sharing sensitive information outside of traditional banking relationships,” Gray says. 

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“Companies have a delicate balancing act to maintain customer privacy on one hand and business innovation on the other.”
EMMA GRAY, Chief Data Officer, ANZ

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An asset

Once companies start thinking of data as an asset, governance becomes really important. Clear controls can ensure companies implement a framework to manage the risk of sharing sensitive information.

“As [businesses] start to think more about valuing data as an asset, our sophistication in managing it along its lifecycle will change,” Data Republic co-founder Paul McCarney says.

“This won't happen for a while because we need liquidity in the data for [users to find] value.”

Data Republic provides a platform and legal framework to help organisations manage the governance and the security of sharing data.

“Our company sits in between the data sets,” McCarney says. “We manage the process which includes the communication, the workflow and the data transfer between this environment and the analytic environment.”

It is clear companies and their executives need to prioritise the management of data, Gray says.

“If [data] is being used, is it being protected, governed appropriately, and is it creating customer and business value?” Gray says. “If not, you probably have some work to do.”

Sharon Klyne is Associate Director, Communications, Institutional at ANZ

This article is an edited version of comments made at ANZ’s Finance & Treasury Forum in Singapore in 2018.