Will Big Data Work For Credit Unions?

Is big data too hairy and audacious to be a realistic goal for credit unions? Or will the promise of machine learning, artificial intelligence and cluster analyses become the norm for financial cooperatives?

With big data, the volume of input is so massive, many financial marketers find it bewildering if not downright intimidating. Nevertheless, retail behemoths like Amazon, Google and Walmart are milking big data for any customer insights that might help them capture more market share and serve consumers better.

Researchers from Filene, an industry think tank, harvested anonymous profile information and account records from five credit unions in the U.S. and Canada. The data encompassed some 500,000 credit union members and 250 million transactions over a five-year time frame, reported in a 10-dimensional space. Transaction amounts, account balances, credit scores, income and gender were among the variables examined for correlations.

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