AFTAs 2015: Best Analytics Initiative—The Northern Trust Company

The impetus for the project was triggered by two events, according to Scott Murray, the firm’s CTO. First, Northern Trust needed a standard, reusable way to track different business transactions in a consistent manner without making changes to business applications. And second, the firm recognized that big data technologies had the potential to offer Northern Trust the ability to analyze large volumes of data from multiple systems in a non-intrusive manner.

The combination of those two events spurred Northern Trust to use tools like Splunk and Hadoop to create an application that tracks and analyzes financial transactions. Murray says the initial implementation took roughly four months, although the firm continues to add new capabilities every month.

The implementation of the financial tracker has afforded Northern Trust with a number of benefits. For example, clients have an improved user experience, as they receive quicker answers to status queries. Repairs are also speedier, since Northern Trust can quickly track where a transaction is in the processing cycle.

Northern Trust’s proactivity has also improved, according to Murray—the financial transaction tracker’s ability to anticipate anomalous events and take preventative action before they occur has been beneficial. This has improved the firm’s risk mitigation.

The solution has also improved Northern Trust’s overall historical analytics, according to Murray says. With data from multiple systems, the firm can perform deeper analytics and business intelligence. 

Clients have an improved user experience, as they receive quicker answers to status queries. Repairs are also speedier, since Northern Trust can quickly track where a transaction is in the processing cycle.

Murray says that additional benefits will be gained from the financial transaction tracker down the road. “There is a robust pipeline of new system data feeds that are being added to the application,” Murray explains. “Over time, the ability to predict non-standard events and correlate business processes across multiple applications will significantly improve our ability to serve our clients.”