PrecisionLender recently launched its latest product offering, Portfolio Insights. For an in-depth look at what it is and what it does – as well as to learn more about another recent offering, Market Insights - you can register for our Feb. 18 webinar: "Leveraging Data with PrecisionLender's Insights Suite."
In the meantime, this FAQ can serve as quick introduction to Portfolio Insights, explaining the “why, what, who, how,” and even the “when” of the product. Much of it is based on a podcast conversation we had with Tim Shanahan, our VP and Head of Client Strategy at PrecisionLender, and Alex Habet, PrecisionLender’s Principal Solutions Consultant.
Q: Why did PrecisionLender build Portfolio Insights? Put another way, what’s the problem Portfolio Insights solves?
A: In the broad sense, Portfolio Insights help banks make better use of the mountains of data they have on hand. It’s a puzzle that PrecisionLender, with the largest commercial data set on earth and a team of world-class data scientists, is uniquely positioned to solve.
Drilling down from the broad to the specific, here are just a few of the data utilization problems Portfolio Insights solves:
- Providing early warnings of credit deterioration
- Assessing overall portfolio credit risk
- Driving more revenue from renewals
- Giving bankers broader pricing context while structuring deals
- Assessing individual banker performance
Q: So Portfolio Insights helps banks make better use of their data. Why has this been a problem for them?
A: At the risk of sounding glib, banks are full of bankers. While they’ve started to focus more on their data, that’s still a relatively recent phenomenon.
Even the larger banks that have made a serious investment in weaponizing their data are still having trouble connecting the dots. That’s partly because it takes time to stand up a data science program. But even when that happens, those data scientists typically have marginal knowledge of banking, while bankers have a marginal knowledge of data science. It can be difficult for them to come together to figure out solutions and agree on use cases to march towards.
Meanwhile, smaller banks can’t even begin to contemplate putting together a data science team. So how can they devote enough resources to compete with the larger players?
PrecisionLender can help both groups. We have a deep understanding of the cross section of banking and technology. And we have the scale- a small army of data scientists and former bankers focused on developing these tools – that enables us to accelerate transformation in this space.
Q: What sort of data does Portfolio Insights tap into?
A: The beauty of Portfolio Insights is that it leverages data that banks already provide to PrecisionLender. That information is mined for insights into things such as anomaly detection, real-time credit migrations, or even where similar loans have been priced relative to the deal that’s right in front of your banker.
Q: How are these insights delivered? And who receives them?
A: There two user groups for Portfolio Insights – bank management and front-line bankers.
For bank management we provide all the data, as well as some visualization templates. Banks can also create their own custom reports.
Meanwhile, Portfolio Insights delivers information to front-line bankers via Andi, our digital enterprise coach. It’s part of the coaching she provides to bankers within the PrecisionLender application, to help them price and structure deals. At other times, Andi delivers information to bankers via email, with insights on different things going on in their portfolios.
Q: When are those insights delivered?
A: Some of them are delivered in real-time. While bankers are structuring deals, they can see things like comparable loans or market pricing and use that to triangulate to the right price. It’s about narrowing down to that best option for both the client and the bank.
Those in-the-moment insights - the Andi suggestions, the email notifications about an anomaly that was detected, the interactive analytics – enable bankers to act quickly and stand out from the competition.
But what about delivering insights in between those deals? Typically, that’s done by portfolio managers at the bank and usually in a very manual way. It’s a lot of grunt work, to be honest, to stay on top of client activity. But Portfolio Insights performs those monitoring tasks, either for relationship managers or for portfolio managers. Automating all those previously manual processes greatly accelerates workflows and, in some cases, enables banks to do analyses that previously weren’t possible, due to limited time and resources.
The net result is better, faster information. Where previously management had to operate with data that’s in arrears, now Portfolio Insights empowers them to make proactive, higher quality decisions.
About the Author
Follow on Linkedin More Content by Jim Young
