Putting a modern business-driven data platform to work: Three ways it can make a difference in bank management

To harmonize data and streamline multiple analytical use cases, financial institutions need a business-driven data management system.  

Banks have invested significantly in modernizing their data architecture, with more than 83% of banks planning to increase spending on their data management solutions in 2024¹. But they still face significant challenges. Specifically, they struggle to achieve data interoperability for multiple analytical scenarios like finance, risk and regulatory reporting.  

Legacy homegrown systems, multiple data warehouses, fragmented data, and manual processes increase errors in risk reporting². At the same time, competing priorities, such as balancing innovation (like AI-driven analytics) with compliance (e.g., BCBS 239), are driving these interoperability challenges³. As a result, managing data across multiple analytical scenarios—where the full assets and liabilities of a bank need to be analyzed —becomes difficult, hindering operational efficiency in finance, risk management, and regulatory compliance.  

So how can financial institutions unlock the value of their data management to improve business performance and meet regulatory requirements?  

By implementing a modern, business-driven data platform, such as SAP Fioneer Financial Services Data Management (FSDM), banks can bridge this gap between complex IT landscapes and consistent analytical use cases through standardized, integrated data. This article will explore three impactful ways FSDM can make a difference:

• Finance and accounting
• Risk management
• Regulatory reporting

Three real-life use cases of a modern business-driven data platform 

With FSDM, banks can create a strong data foundation that enables key use cases.

1. Finance and accounting

nstead of having to integrate disparate operational systems directly into the finance and accounting systems, banks can rely on FSDM’s standardized, business-driven data model, where all operational systems can deliver data. Finance or accounting applications can then consume this data from FSDM.  

As a single source of truth, FSDM enables consistent and efficient data access for finance and accounting applications, such as SAP Fioneer’s Financial Products Subledger (FPSL).  

FSDM also provides pre-defined integration content between FSDM and FPSL, streamlining the integration process and reducing implementation costs. With this approach, the operational systems don’t need to understand the specific logic of the accounting applications, and vice versa. FSDM acts as an intermediary layer, decoupling the complexities of different IT systems and data models. 

For example, a large bank has multiple systems for loans, deposits, and trading. Without FSDM, the bank’s accounting department must map and reconcile data from all these systems to prepare financial statements in a separate analytical application. This process is complex, time-consuming, and prone to errors.  

With FSDM, these systems deliver their data to a central and standardized data model. This enables the bank’s financial sub-ledger (e.g., FPSL) to receive consistent, harmonized data, making the accounting process more efficient, transparent, and accurate. 

2. Risk management

Inconsistent data and a fragmented view make it difficult to assess and manage risks effectively. With FSDM, banks have a unified data model that supports all aspects of risk management.  

FSDM allows for the storage and reuse of analytical calculations, such as those used in risk management. This ensures consistent and timely liquidity, market, and credit risk insights based on the same data that is used for financial accounting. 

A real-life example includes a bank that needs to assess the impact of interest rate changes on its loan portfolio. Without FSDM, the bank would need to gather data from multiple operational systems, perform complex cash flow calculations with separate engines, and reconcile the results. This process is error-prone and time-consuming.  

With FSDM, the bank has a holistic view of its loan portfolio data, which can be used in a risk management application to perform standardized calculations of the impact of interest rate changes quickly and accurately. 

FSDM supports standard integration with best-of-breed risk management solutions. Customers of FSDM are integrating risk management solutions from vendors like Wolters Kluwer and zeb.  

3. Regulatory reporting

Many local and global regulatory requirements often change, making it challenging for banks to adapt reporting systems quickly due to the complexity of having to integrate data from multiple operational banking systems. 

FSDM simplifies the data management for compliance reporting—improving transparency and reducing the risk of errors—by providing a single source of truth, which ensures global and local reporting use the same data as financial accounting and risk management. With data versioning and historization of data, banks can meet audit requirements with greater accuracy. Banks can also benefit from standard integration of FSDM with regulatory reporting solutions from vendors like Regnology or Wolters Kluwer.  

For example, when a bank needs to report its daily balance sheet and liquidity position to regulators, it needs to gather data from multiple systems, perform calculations, and reconcile data to meet various reporting requirements. This process is complex and time-consuming.  

With FSDM, the bank regulatory reporting application can access a consistent view of the relevant assets and liabilities, simplifying the calculation of KPIs and report generation and improving consistency. Furthermore, any time a regulator asks about how a particular KPI was calculated, the bank can easily trace the data based on the versioning of all data in FSDM to provide the necessary information. 

Driving bank data interoperability with FSDM 

Achieving seamless data interoperability is no longer optional for modern banking—it is a strategic imperative. Even though 83% of banks are increasing investments in data management solutions, fragmented data architectures and legacy systems still hinder efficiency, risk control, and compliance. Without a unified approach, financial institutions will struggle to extract real value from their data. 

By implementing a modern business-driven data platform like SAP Fioneer’s FSDM, banks can break down silos, standardize data across functions, and drive automation. This transformation leads to greater interoperability across financing and accounting, risk management and regulatory compliance. This interoperability is essential in achieving operational efficiency, reduced compliance risk, and enhanced decision-making capabilities.  

The financial institutions that prioritize data interoperability today will gain a competitive edge—improving resilience, accelerating innovation, and ensuring regulatory alignment in an evolving financial landscape.

To find out how SAP Fioneer’s Financial Services Data Management (FSDM) solution can help banks transform their data management landscape contact your account representative or click the link below.

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Sources: 

1. Statista: Banking sector technology investment intentions in the U.S. in 2nd quarter 2024, by technology
2. Atlan: BCBS 239 Data Lineage: What Banks Need to Know in 2025
3. Moody’s Data Interoperability’s Importance in the Financial Services Industry