IN today's ever-competitive banking environment, financial institutions face an array of challenges, ranging from disruption because of financial technology (fintech) to market volatility and changing regulations. Data from EY's 2022 Tech Horizon Survey, mentioned data and analytics are one of the highest areas of investment in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC). Despite the clear benefits of a data-first approach, the results showed only 8 percent of financial institutions in APAC describe themselves as data-centric today. Allan Tan, author at FutureCIO, wrote about the need for the financial services industry which often relies on legacy technology to modernize its data platform to better store, access and analyze massive real-time data with the global market reaching $28.6 trillion in 2025.

In an interview with David Irecki, director of Solution Consulting, APJ at Boomi, we discussed how APAC FSIs could modernize and stay relevant through effective data management. Analysis of the Tech Horizon survey reveals a high proportion (39 percent) of APAC financial institutions are still in the incremental stage of tech transformation. About 40 percent of financial processes like cash disbursement, revenue management, and general operations could be automated, according to a 2018 Mckinsey survey. Irecki lauds the great initiatives of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), such as the Digital Personal Equity Retirement Account (PERA) and the Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap. A key goal of the BSP's Digital Payments Transformation Roadmap is to convert 50 percent of total retail transactions to electronic channels by 2023 and increase the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70 percent.