Kristin Moyer

In financial services, data has become the differentiator in payments.  Financial institutions struggle to differentiate with payment products, but they can differentiate by using data for value added purposes (for Gartner clients, please see Banks Must Invest in Payment Systems to Win Back Customer Trust, Payment Information Value-Added Services: The Cornerstone of Customer Loyalty and others).  Data is becoming more important in all areas of lending, both as a differentiator and as a tool of survival.  For example, loan level and property level data is needed to triage distressed loans and value asset-backed securities.

I saw a great example of a non-banking industry using data for value added purposes.  Rhode Island is tracking H1N1 through e-prescription data.

“Public health officials will receive de-identified prescription data along with ZIP codes and ages of patients to aid in the tracking and trending of flu outbreaks through the state (see the Information Week article here).”

Officials hope to achieve the following benefits by tracking e-prescription data:

• Tracking outbreaks by location (for example, schools hit particularly hard) and age
• Detect discrepancies in between doctor reports and drugs prescribed (which could trigger educational outreach on over-prescribing medications)
• Monitor availability of Tamiful and other antiviral medications to trigger the release of emergency stockpiles as needed.

Turning data into information – not easy, but more necessary than ever in financial services.