Download PDF
The Co-Operative Bank UK Bank Provides Accurate Reporting Across Business Centres
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Predictive Quality Analytics
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- System Integration
- Training
The Challenge
The Co-Operative Bank, a UK-based bank with over 3 million customer accounts, was facing a challenge in providing fast, accurate, and easy-to-read reports for distribution via email to its 19 business centres across the UK. The bank's operations are run out of these regional Corporate business centres, which manage the Bank’s core corporate customers. Therefore, it was essential for these centres to have timely access to accurate information that would affect decisions made on both individual accounts and across the wider customer base. The bank had been using Information Builders’ FOCUS product to create mainframe reports. However, the system did not provide a distribution process for the Bank- once created the reports had to be taken offline, sent to be printed and then packed and shipped to the relevant departments. This could take up to five days from running the job to end users receiving the output.
About The Customer
The Co-Operative Bank is the only UK high street bank with an ethical policy that gives customers a say in how their money is used. It has over 100 outlets in the UK and more than 3 million customer accounts. The bank offers everything from 24-hour banking via call centres, to credit cards and ‘green’ mortgages. It is also the bank behind smile, the first full Internet bank in the UK. In 2002, The Co-Operative Group announced the formation of Co-Operative Financial Services Ltd (CFS), bringing The Co-Operative bank under the same strategic leadership as the Co-Operative Insurance Society (CIS). The bank positions itself as a ‘breath of fresh air’ within the UK financial services industry for a number of reasons, not least its commitment to exceptional levels of customer service and unique, broad-ranging product portfolio.
The Solution
The Co-Operative Bank decided to migrate to using a web-based reporting tool, WebFOCUS, provided by Information Builders. WebFOCUS provides various methods of delivering information in a timely and efficient manner. The two methodologies utilised comprise of web-based applications or Information Builders distribution tool Report Caster. This has considerably reduced manual processing overheads and enabled developers to concentrate on producing business critical information. WebFOCUS has enabled reports to be delivered directly from the mainframe in real time, in a format that is simple for end users to understand. The solution also allows the reports to be distributed via email to key staff within the Co-Operative Bank’s 19 business centres, giving them easy access to accurate, up-to-date information on a regular basis. Reporting generally falls into two categories; firstly, event-based alerts that require immediate attention/action and secondly, general management information.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Real-time In-vehicle Monitoring
The telematic solution provides this vital premium-adjusting information. The solution also helps detect and deter vehicle or trailer theft – as soon as a theft occurs, monitoring personnel can alert the appropriate authorities, providing an exact location.“With more and more insurance companies and major fleet operators interested in monitoring driver behaviour on the grounds of road safety, efficient logistics and costs, the market for this type of device and associated e-business services is growing rapidly within Italy and the rest of Europe,” says Franco.“The insurance companies are especially interested in the pay-per-use and pay-as-you-drive applications while other organisations employ the technology for road user charging.”“One million vehicles in Italy currently carry such devices and forecasts indicate that the European market will increase tenfold by 2014.However, for our technology to work effectively, we needed a highly reliable wireless data network to carry the information between the vehicles and monitoring stations.”
Case Study
Safety First with Folksam
The competitiveness of the car insurance market is driving UBI growth as a means for insurance companies to differentiate their customer propositions as well as improving operational efficiency. An insurance model - usage-based insurance ("UBI") - offers possibilities for insurers to do more efficient market segmentation and accurate risk assessment and pricing. Insurers require an IoT solution for the purpose of data collection and performance analysis
Case Study
Smooth Transition to Energy Savings
The building was equipped with four end-of-life Trane water cooled chillers, located in the basement. Johnson Controls installed four York water cooled centrifugal chillers with unit mounted variable speed drives and a total installed cooling capacity of 6,8 MW. Each chiller has a capacity of 1,6 MW (variable to 1.9MW depending upon condenser water temperatures). Johnson Controls needed to design the equipment in such way that it would fit the dimensional constraints of the existing plant area and plant access route but also the specific performance requirements of the client. Morgan Stanley required the chiller plant to match the building load profile, turn down to match the low load requirement when needed and provide an improvement in the Energy Efficiency Ratio across the entire operating range. Other requirements were a reduction in the chiller noise level to improve the working environment in the plant room and a wide operating envelope coupled with intelligent controls to allow possible variation in both flow rate and temperature. The latter was needed to leverage increased capacity from a reduced number of machines during the different installation phases and allow future enhancement to a variable primary flow system.
Case Study
Automated Pallet Labeling Solution for SPR Packaging
SPR Packaging, an American supplier of packaging solutions, was in search of an automated pallet labeling solution that could meet their immediate and future needs. They aimed to equip their lines with automatic printer applicators, but also required a solution that could interface with their accounting software. The challenge was to find a system that could read a 2D code on pallets at the stretch wrapper, track the pallet, and flag any pallets with unread barcodes for inspection. The pallets could be single or double stacked, and the system needed to be able to differentiate between the two. SPR Packaging sought a system integrator with extensive experience in advanced printing and tracking solutions to provide a complete traceability system.
Case Study
Transforming insurance pricing while improving driver safety
The Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing the car insurance industry on a scale not seen since the introduction of the car itself. For decades, premiums have been calculated using proxy-based risk assessment models and historical data. Today, a growing number of innovative companies such as Quebec-based Industrielle Alliance are moving to usage-based insurance (UBI) models, driven by the advancement of telematics technologies and smart tracking devices.
Case Study
MasterCard Improves Customer Experience Through Self-Service Data Prep
Derek Madison, Leader of Business Financial Support at MasterCard, oversees the validation of transactions and cash between two systems, whether they’re MasterCard owned or not. He was charged with identifying new ways to increase efficiency and improve MasterCard processes. At the outset, the 13-person team had to manually reconcile system interfaces using reports that resided on the company’s mainframe. Their first order of business each day was to print 20-30 individual, multi-page reports. Using a ruler to keep their place within each report, they would then hand-key the relevant data, line by line, into Excel for validation. “We’re talking about a task that took 40-80 hours each week,” recalls Madison, “As a growing company with rapidly expanding product offerings, we had to find a better way to prepare this data for analysis.”