Nearly three quarters of global financial services executives have admitted they are challenged by the fractured nature and vast amount of data available.

The Aite Group surveyed 682 marketing and risk executives at financial institutions across five countries during the third quarter, finding that in the UK alone, 71 per cent of executives said they were challenged by the immense amount of data they have.

The study found that the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is expected to continue over the next 24 months, with 68 per cent of UK executives - and three in four globally - considering integrating new analytics technology into their platforms.

“Most financial institutions lack a single, cohesive analytics platform,” said Tiffani Montez, senior analyst at Aite Group. “Firms may have vastly different data repositories and teams managing analytics functions, often leading to multiple approaches - by line of business, role and channel - across their institutions.

“To address these issues, many financial institutions are looking to centralise their data into a single platform that can quickly support change and integrate new data models,” she added.

Enhancing analytics capabilities through AI/ML technology is a top priority globally, but with distinct differences across geographies. Specifically, 14 per cent of global executives indicated they currently do not have any solutions that can implement AI/ML into analytical models. Slightly more UK executives (18 per cent) indicated similar limitations.

Globally, 66 per cent of respondents - and a slightly lower number of UK respondents (58 per cent) - believe the technology to be a major competitive differentiator.

The data scientist talent shortage is another pressing issue contributing to the global insights gap. Globally, 86 per cent of respondents noted there are challenges with accessing the right data science and analytics talent, with 85 per cent of UK responses citing the same challenge.

Financial institutions have placed an increasing amount of influence on the value of expanding data sources. The desire to invest in data includes new sources such as non-traditional, third party and alternative data among the banking and insurance communities. Over the next two years, 89 per cent of institutions globally - and 78 per cent of UK institutions - have plans to use alternative data.

More than half of global respondents plan to increase spending on most types of data sources, with 65 per cent intending to increase spending on newer forms of data, such as mobile information about web browsing and app usage.

In the UK, this percentage was significantly lower at 27 per cent, yet 34 per cent of UK executives indicated that the integration of new data sources will be very important to their business strategies.

It is the lack of the right tools that seems to pose one of many issues, as only 17 per cent of UK firms said they can integrate new data sources across all of their analytic solutions.

The survey also found that in the UK, 65 per cent of marketing executives and 67 per cent of risk executives expected their overall budget for data analytics to increase year-over-year. This was lower than the global average of 78 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.

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