Advanced analytics enables SBI to take better decisions

State Bank of India has more than 18 crore customers who bank with over 15,000 branches. Given its vast size and presence in 32 countries, the business data of the bank was spread over several domestic and international source systems like core banking (domestic and international), trade finance, treasury (domestic and international), ATMs, Internet banking, mobile banking, payment systems, etc. Each system in turn had huge number of customer accounts and very high transaction volumes. In order to resolve this issue and integrate the data from diverse sources into timely and reliable actionable information, the bank undertook the SBI Data Warehouse Project.

The objective of the bank was two-fold — it wanted to offer timely information to the top management and decision makers so that they can analyze it and take appropriate decisions, and it wanted to perform data mining or analytics over such huge data sets available. Thus, the bank deployed BI and advanced analytical tools like IBM Cognos, UNICA Campaign Management, SPSS Modeler, Intelligent Miner and Open Pages on the IBM platform.

The project has enabled the bank to use predictive analytics for several business areas, including credit risk management, operational risk management, and ATM operations and strategy. Bank branches and controllers also have access to single view of data integrated from the different sources. These insights are being utilized by different business units for reviewing performance of various products across categories, locations, branches and customer profiles. This in turn is helping the bank to adopt a more focused approach towards targeting specific customer segments and locations for product promotions/campaigns and launch of customized products and services.

The bank is also able to provide important BI dashboards on smartphones and iPads, which enables top executives to review performances of various activities and take real-time decisions, even while travelling. As a part of the project, the bank has integrated the Lead Management System with its existing CRM system UNICA, where customer interactions are recorded, traced and tagged. This helps the bank in designing more efficient target campaigns, marketing new products and services and converting the prospect into a valuable customer. Apart from this, significant shift from branch transactions to alternate channel transactions as a result of effective marketing and campaigning activities, has resulted in considerable cost reduction for the bank.

By using CRM analytics for targeted campaigns, the bank is able to convert more leads, resulting in substantial increase in revenues. Based on the insights from Debit Cards – POS transactions analytics, the bank can take decisions for improving market share by formulating strategies for promoting cards more effectively to prospective customers, devising effective loyalty reward points for customer retention, and formulating region-specific reward programs and merchant tie-ups. Also, ATM analytics has enabled the bank to better position its ATMs across the country, which has helped the bank to attract more customers, resulting in the increase in the bank’s earnings and reduction in operating cost.

With the use of efficient BI reporting and analytics, SBI has launched various sorts of online banking, mobile banking and ATM services, which has enabled it to acquire new customers. It also has effective grievance redressal and complaints resolution mechanism in place for its existing customers across business lines. Apart from this, it can perform trend analysis to observe customer attrition and churn and devise strategies accordingly.

Highlights

• The bank has been able to generate 78,759 leads (9.56 percent growth over the last year) and convert 9,374 leads (39.87 percent growth over the last year).
• It generated revenue worth Rs 375.64 crore, with nearly 27 percent growth from 2011.
• It reached out to 3.78 crore customers through 163 campaigns.

99 percent of mobile threats target Android devices, says Kaspersky report

According to the recently published Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2012, 99 percent of newly discovered mobile malicious programs target the Android platform, with a very small amount targeting Java- and Symbian-based smartphones.

2012 was the second year to show explosive growth in Android malware. From a negligible eight new unique malicious programs in January 2011, the average monthly discovery rate for new Android malware in 2011 went up to more than 800 samples. In 2012, Kaspersky Lab identified an average of 6, 300 new mobile malware samples every month.

Overall, in 2012 the number of known malicious samples for Android increased more than eight times. The majority of Android malware can be divided into three main groups according to functionality. “SMS Trojans” drain victims’ mobile accounts by sending SMS texts to premium-rate numbers. Backdoors provide unauthorized access to a smartphone, making it possible to install other malicious programs or steal personal data. Spyware targets the unauthorized collection of private data, such as address books and passwords (or even personal photos in some cases).

In the first half of 2012, Backdoors, SMS Trojans and Spyware combined accounted for 51 percent of all newly discovered Android malware. In the Top Ten chart of Android malware that was blocked by Kaspersky Mobile Security or Kaspersky Tablet Security, SMS Trojans are the most widespread, with applications showing unwanted ads to users in second place. Less widespread but by far the most dangerous are mobile banking Trojans that often work in conjunction with their desktop counterparts, as was the case with Carberp-in-the-Mobile.

As per the report, the Android platform allows software installation from untrusted sources, and one of the best ways to guarantee an infection is to install programs from suspicious websites. However, malware on the official Google Play application distribution platform is another trend that started in 2011 and continued in 2012, despite Google’s best efforts to reduce cybercriminal activity. One of the most unusual examples of mobile malware in 2012 was the "Find and Call" application that managed to sneak into the Google Play store as well as Apple’s application store.

9 things that you did not know about the Indian Cyber law

 By Adv Prashant Mali

India does not have any law by the name of Cyber Law nor any law called as “The Data Protection Act”. India has one law encompassing IT related crimes, Data Protection related law and Internet related law and that is called The IT Act, 2000. The exact name of the law is “The Information Technology Act, 2000 as amended by the Information Technology (amendment) Act of 2008”. This law has to be read and applied along with The IT Rules.

I have detailed below some of the crimes for which a common man can be punished with imprisonment upto three years or fine up to five lakhs or both. Also, he can be arrested without warrant.

1. If anybody copies data (i.e .pdf files, .jpg files etc) in his pen drive or microSDcard without the permission of the owner.
2. If you download .mp3 or .mpeg4 songs from the website distributing free songs or videos.
3. If you cut or copy and then paste any data or information from any website without prior permission of the website owner for any material or financial gains.
4. If an employee keeps forwarding all his official emails from his official email id i.e from empname@company.com to his personal email id i.e to empname@gmail.com.
5. You have made your friends or unknown persons Facebook profile or his email or website by someone’s name to defraud or cheat the friend or other persons at large.
6. If you insert a pen drive in someone’s computer and that has virus or worms in it, and this is then passed in the computer or server you just accessed or the e-mails you forward has virus attached to it which gets transmitted everywhere because of your forwarded email.
7. If you by your activities crash anybody's hard disk or break his monitor or destroy his computer.
8. If you delete files or folders or modify the content of files or folders from someone’s computer.
9. If you steal someone’s software programs source code or change it or delete it thereby causing financial loss to someone or financial gain to yourself.

Normally, the police can call you for investigation and arrest you immediately only because all the above sections are covered under Section 66 of The IT Act, 2000 and are cognizable. The silver lining is that section 66 is a bailable section so you can secure a bail or for that matter an anticipatory bail.


- Adv Prashant Mali is a renowned Cyber Law and Cyber Security Expert