CIOIN

R.I.S. Sidhu

Chief GM, Punjab National Bank

PNB has become the first public sector bank to implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse solution.

Executive summary

CIO 100 Winner: R.I.S Sidhu implemented an enterprise-wide data warehouse (EDW) that would leverage the bank's operational data available in multiple sources systems and give access to data required for regulatory, statutory reporting and analytical purposes.

Enabling over 55,000 employees in over 4,500 locations to serve customers and conduct regular banking duties is an IT budget of Rs 285 crore and a 500 strong IT team in Punjab National Bank. Like other banks, PNB too had to adhere to risk compliance and have a 360 degree view of its customers and MIS. Not to forget, with the downturn pushing the BFSI sector into rough waters, cost optimization was a necessity.

R.I.S Sidhu, chief general manager, PNB, attempted something big. He wanted to attend to all of these problems with one solution: implementing an enterprise-wide data warehouse (EDW).

The EDW was meant to leverage the bank's operational data available in multiple sources systems and give access to data required for regulatory, statutory reporting and analytical purposes. The existing heterogeneous data sources included a core banking solution and a total bank automation solution. On top of that, there were various other systems in different head office (HO) divisions across the country and data available was often incomplete and inaccurate. There was a need to cut manual intervention as much as possible.

"For providing a 360 degree customer view and aiding the bank in strategic decision making, the EDW needed to integrate data from these various source systems," says Sidhu.

The EDW project not only brought dispersed data under one umbrella, it also enabled the bank to meet regulatory requirement and implement an anti-money laundering solution (AML). With the AML, alerts regarding suspicious transactions are now generated automatically based on the set rules and are resolved at head offices. Prior to this, such information was sought from branches which were collated at head offices for identifying suspicious transactions, requiring much higher levels of manual intervention.

"An additional benefit was the resulting CRM solution deployed across all the branches of 11 identified circles. This enabled the marketing teams to effectively implement their strategy, making good use of higher visibility," says Sidhu. The CRM helps the bank now to better retain existing customers by cross-selling and up-selling, to attract new customers by offering various value added products and services, and even convert loss making customers into profitable ones.