In our data driven world, having a holistic view of your customer, market sentiment and sector performance results in a competitive advantage. Knowledge is power, but in our information-rich society an overload of information can be a burden. Businesses can differentiate themselves by finding the right insights to focus on. Positioning themselves to optimise resources through directing their attention towards value-adding activities.

BSG closely collaborated with the corporate bank’s Data Science team to identify use cases that were of critical importance to business users. A common theme identified across multiple business units was the need to incorporate news data to produce enriched insights. A Proof of Value (PoV) was initiated to determine the feasibility and available options regarding external news as a data source for machine learning purposes.

The project was approached and delivered using Agile methodology to ensure important tasks and requirements can be prioritised along the way, while demonstrating value throughout.

Once the PoV successfully demonstrated the value of using machine learning on external news articles, a minimal viable product (MVP) was planned and implemented. This entailed receiving news in near-real-time with the ability to classify it and deliver an enhanced output – all within a minimum timeframe. With the aim of reading market sentiment and identifying potential business opportunities. Business users were included throughout the journey to collaboratively prioritise current and future requirements.

Having your finger on the pulse of market sentiment and sector performance enables a bank to provide valuable insights to its business users and corporate customers. BSG enabled this by harnessing the power of Data Science to tailor and prioritise external news feeds, a first for this South African corporate bank.

The news delivery pipeline will enable the bank to successfully utilise near-real-time news to enhance the quality of conversation and insights offered to corporate customers, as well as monitor business opportunities relating to their customers, industries and countries of interest.

This first is a foundation for a long-term strategy to use unstructured, external data to enhance internal information and initiatives. This engagement has laid the ground work for incorporating other valuable data sources e.g. social media news data to extract value-adding insights that will competitively position the bank and their customers in the market.