Using Analytics for Better Reporting

With a need for better data aggregation for portfolio reporting and to create more comprehensive reporting across different business lines, High Point, N.C.-based Bank of North Carolina has been able to streamline its reporting using SAS analytics software.

According to the bank's CIO, Michael Bryan, it had become a struggle to forecast and trend data for the wide-ranging reporting requests that were needed. Only the bank's VP-level and higher personnel received these reports, which were increasingly becoming needed by a wide range of personnel.

Further, the Bank of North Carolina is active in M&A activity. It acquires a new bank about three times per year, he says. It was a becoming a complicated process to load data and create a model when examining potential acquisitions and evaluating data from legal closing through core data conversion. "I could see us hitting a wall someday," says Bryan.

The bank then explored analytics solutions from three different vendors, ultimately choosing a platform from Cary, N.C.-based SAS. The initial implementation provided dashboards to all of the bank's commercial lending personnel. Reports included risk metrics of past-due loans, charge-off loans, and critical loan exceptions. These put vital measurements of production and risk exposures at lenders' fingertips, he says.

The streamlined process has also helped to cut costs by lowering the need for training and additional staff while improving user efficiency. "Lending officers can see accounts in summary, and also have the ability to drill down into further specifics," he says.

Regarding potential acquisitions, the Bank of North Carolina can now take the pertinent data from the target institutions and convert it to the SAS format it now uses in order to give to its finance department. This means that at investment meetings the CFO can have quick and timely access to the latest data.

The bank is now in the process of moving onto SAS's visual analytics platform completely, says Bryan, by next quarter and completely replacing what remains of its in-house reporting platform.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio