TD Canada Trust has quickened the process of creating retail risk reports without adding headcount to the team responsible for producing them.
The bank’s retail credit risk department develops reports to help credit centers identify issues before they become problems. But several of its most essential reports were time consuming to produce and require very recent data to be useful to users.
“Our team provides data that can help TD Canada Trust remain competitive against other major retail banks in the Canadian market,” said Wilfredo Oliveros. In particular, two of its monthly reports help the bank measure credit approval ratios and provide data on credit delinquents.
The bank tapped SQL Server 2005 to speed the process. Features like SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) had potential to improve data analysis and integration capabilities. SSIS automates the transition of data into the database from disparate sources. OLAP, a well-known analytics technology, works in conjunction with SSIS to speed the report building and generation process. SQL Server 2005’s 64-bit support was also important for the team’s goal of moving to 64-bit computing.
“The challenge is that it’s a very laborious process to pull the data together necessary to complete the reports. The data we need is stored in several sources across the company,” said Oliveros. “Our ideal solution would provide enough IT muscle to develop reports at a rate fast enough to reflect the current market situation for our executives, without requiring additions to the team,” he added.
Built on an HP 64-bit platform, the solution is capable of processing 30 gigabytes of new data each month. Installation began in July and was completed at year-end. It has helped the team automate some data collection that was previously handled manually.
“We’ve pared down one key task that used to take up to three weeks, to only eight minutes,” said Oliveros.
By speeding the report generation process, the new system has improved the quality of the data in the team’s reports. It has also allowed the team to create ad-hoc reports more quickly. Overall, said Oliveros, the system “has improved our ability to gain valuable and time-sensitive insight from the vast amount of risk data collected.”