To achieve this requires what is generally known as a Single View of Customer (SVC) providing a complete, single view of each and every customer showing relevant personal detail and detail on all product holdings - how much they have saved and what their mortgage, loans and credit cards amount to etc., all in one place.
The FCA FSCS proposals would, clearly, result in a regulatory requirement if agreed that affected organisations would be mandated to comply with. However, Cantata believes that this initiative should not be regarded as simply another piece of regulation, but rather an opportunity to improve relationships with customers and, with that, the ability to better serve their needs and increase levels of appropriate cross-and up-sell.
Having a single view of customer has been a highly desirable goal for some time and many organisations have spent sums on the issue with varying levels of success. As most banks are the products of mergers and acquisitions and consist of many separate divisions, data on each individual customer's savings, investments and borrowings generally sits across several different systems that do not talk to one another. Solutions invariably involve CRM (customer relationship management) systems but often there are multiple such systems, data issues, organisational and a myriad of other issues. It is not just an IT issue. Yes, CRM systems provide the enabling technology but business processes and training are also necessary to ensure that not only is the data is kept up to date and accurate but that it is also used effectively to help both the organisation and the customer.
First step is to have a clear and achievable strategy. Cantata is highly experienced in this complex area and can help organisations from articulating the strategy (and likely costs) to implementing and/or bringing together existing systems to produce a single customer view.
Having clean, accurate data on each customer and their product holdings will allow Financial Services organisations to not just meet regulatory demands but to profile individual customers and improve their relationships with customers. Such information at the front line gives opportunities to provide the personally tailored help and advice that provides tangible service improvement to customers, and tangible financial benefits to the organisation.
FCA consultation paper CP09/3, published in January 2009 proposes deposit takers be able to produce a single customer view and cleansed data that could provide the aggregate balance held by each eligible depositor to allow the FSCS to pay compensation to the majority of eligible depositors within seven days of the default of a deposit taker. Go to the FSA website.
Data fields required by FCA as part of the single customer view:
| Field identifier | Field descriptor |
|---|---|
| Customer details | |
| Single customer view record number | Unique record identifier |
| Customer name | Full name of customer |
| Any former names of account holder | If identified |
| National Insurance number | Where held |
| Contact details | |
| Full Address | House name, House number, Street name, Town/City |
| Address postcode | As mailing address |
| Address country | As required |
| Details of account(s) | |
| Account title | Surname or company name, first name, any other account initials or middle name identifier |
| Account number | Unique number for this account |
| Product type | Type of product or service – deposit/investment |
| Account holder indicator | Any field or identifier which can be used to identify the relationship between the account holder and the account e.g. joint, single |
| Account status code | e.g. active, open, closed, dormant |
| Account balance | At end of business on date of request from FSCS |
| Aggregate balance | |
| Aggregate balance across all accounts | At end of business on date of request from FSCS |
The system should show their entitlement to be £50,000 (or whatever the prevailing limit is). The limit may change in the future so it must be possible to change the limit against which the system checks holdings.