Data quality 'is vital for financial services industry'

Ensuring that data is well maintained is vital for the financial services industry.

This is according to Daragh O'Brien, former Director of Publicity for the International Association for Information and data quality, who said data is "the mission critical asset" for this sector.

He pointed out that as much as we all might wish, banks do not have piles of money, neatly stacked in boxes with account numbers on them.

"What banks, insurance companies and other financial services businesses manage is the information about the concept of money and value," Mr O'Brien commented.

One of the issues that helped to trigger the financial crisis was a lack of transparency regarding the way in which information was being managed, processed and packaged, he added.

A recent survey carried out by research firm Lepus and published by Thomson Reuters revealed that three quarters of financial services firms intend to increase their spending on data quality projects over the coming year.