The financial industry has been largely forced to be at the cutting edge of document and data management. From the rapid evolution of regulatory compliance requirements to market demands and beyond, information governance performances separate the winners from the losers in the financial industry. In addition to basic data management demands, the average financial industry contender needs to have advanced analytics capabilities to boot. Making major decisions without the insights of big data and other analytics solutions is already a risky proposition in this sector, especially considering the high adoption rates thus far. 

"Analytics plays a fundamental role in financial processes."

Regardless of whether the firm is in investments, banking, lending or otherwise, analytics play a more fundamental role in the ebb and flow of business operations and processes today. Virtually all employees will need access to these solutions, from executives down to floor-level staff members, to be truly competitive as an organization in this arena today. Now, before analytics solutions can be used effectively, these firms first must have optimal data management programs in place, including fully functional mining and capture tools. 

Data capture is becoming more critical in the financial industry for reasons that transcend big data, as well, with firms needing to ensure they can handle visual data discovery demands as well. 

Let's take a look at some of the ways in which financial enterprises can improve their use of data capture technology, as well as how these efforts can boost performance while lowering risk. 

The basic principles of data capture Data capture will often play a more significant role in a company's overall information governance performances than leaders might think. Think of it this way - data volumes grow exponentially in virtually every organization on the globe today. So if data capture policies and technologies are off-base, not efficient or simply not well-thought-out, the growth of information volumes is going to be completely uninhibited. As many companies know, storage is not so much a factor at this point thanks to cloud computing and highly expandable computing technologies. 

However, this does not mean companies do not need to keep their collection and gathering protocols in check. 

CIO Review recently explained some of the reasons why businesses need to ensure they are diligent in their data capture strategies. Speaking to Scott Byers, a document management specialist, the source pointed out that retention, gathering and scanning practices all play into this matter. He argued that too many enterprises are under the impression that scanning and capturing all documents and data possible is just going to cause issues in the long run. 

What's more, the news provider cited comments of a Forrester Research analyst, Alan Weintraub, who stated the policies and practices involved in data capture will play heavily into indexing efficiency and proficiency. As a financial industry professional - try to imagine a poor indexing practice in place and what that would mean for pulling specific files. Suffice it to say that this would be a nightmare. 

So policies should reflect the larger picture. However, the statutes in place will be meaningless without the right technology.

 

Financial data capture is becoming more challenging as the years progress.

The right data capture solution There is no escaping the broad range of data formats and standards out there today. However, financial sector firms need to find ways to reduce the complexity of all these moving parts, and can do so with the right data capture technology. 

If the solutions in place are not flexible and intuitive, then they are simply not going to benefit the employees trying to use them. Additionally, data capture solutions should be capable of the following functions:

• Enriched automation that handles standardization across disparate systems and formats. 
• Elimination of manual data entry to ensure the most efficient and accurate collection and processing. 
• Data transformation from a range of sources such as email HTTP and Web API. 

While data capture is certainly critical to any information governance program, financial sector enterprises should look for a solution that can handle more than this main function. Again, because of the ever-expanding universe of standards and formats that cannot be controlled by any one organization, having a centralized solution in place is essential. This basically ensures all data, regardless of format or standards, is accessible and searchable within a system that employees with the right credentials can access in stride. 

Financial firms should consider the benefits of TextConverter 4 compared to the other options on the market today. This solution is superior when it comes to the average financial enterprise' micro- and macro-level goals.