The financial sector, long recognised for its complexities and necessary vastness, requires innovative, secure, and efficient data management solutions. Kenneth Kuek, Country Lead for InterSystems, speaks to Fintech News Malaysia on what InterSystems brings to the table to even the playing field for financial services firms, with its latest-generation data management solutions.

Regulatory Compliance a Top Priority

The financial sector globally is notorious for its rigorous regulatory demands. Singapore has the sector-wide Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) that governs the regulation of financial services and markets, while in Malaysia, the central Bank Negara has enacted the Financial Act 2013 to regulate and supervise financial institutions, payment systems, and other relevant entities.

With financial data requiring robust protection and being sensitive, private information, it is reasonable that tight compliance requirements would be asked of financial services providers. This is particularly noticeable with constantly evolving digital financial systems and the prevalence of cyber thefts and data breaches that compromise the financial wellbeing of consumers and businesses.

Addressing these concerns, Kenneth Kuek clarifies that, “Being a leading provider of data management solutions for the financial services industry, we prioritise regulatory compliance,” with such commitment helping ensure trust and reliability among their clientele.

The country lead states that InterSystems doesn’t merely meet standards, it aims to set them. Their approach to securing sensitive financial information is multifaceted, spanning encryption methods, role-based access controls, and stringent authentication mechanisms.

Kenneth emphasises the importance of this holistic approach, adding,

“To protect personally identifiable information (PII), we employ data masking and redaction techniques.”

Such practices not only enhance the protection of sensitive data but also facilitate firms in upholding their regulatory obligations.

“With data discovery and classification capabilities, comprehensive documentation, and regular updates to address evolving industry regulations, our solutions are a reliable choice for data management with a strong focus on regulatory compliance,”

Kenneth mentions.

Harnessing Real-time Data for a Competitive Advantage

In the era of digitisation, real-time data has become an invaluable asset for financial firms. From instantaneous trading decisions to risk assessments, access to real-time data can be the differentiating factor between success and mediocrity in the sector. Recognising this, InterSystems has made substantial advancements in this domain.

“Our IRIS platform features a high-performance database engine, enabling efficient real-time data handling for rapid decision-making and trading,”

Kenneth explains.

He emphasises the crucial role of data integration in this regard, noting that,

“InterSystems excels in seamless data integration, ensuring continuous updates from various sources like market data feeds.”

Such integration ensures that firms can respond swiftly to market shifts, an attribute key for algorithmic trading and other real-time financial operations.

Elaborating on the competitive edge this offers, Kenneth remarks,

“InterSystems empowers financial firms to enhance customer experience, detect fraud, optimise strategies, and provide superior service through real-time data analytics, maintaining competitiveness in the fast-paced financial sector.”

Scaling for the Future

One of the most formidable challenges that financial institutions face is managing the enormous volumes of transactional data. This vast data landscape requires a robust and adaptable management system.

“InterSystems IRIS data platform is an excellent choice for mission-critical financial services applications requiring high performance […] designed to handle very high transactional workloads as well as a high volume of analytic queries at the same time, without incident or performance degradation, even when message rates and analytic workloads unexpectedly spike,”

Kenneth affirms.

Detailing the platform’s capabilities, he continues,

“At the core of InterSystems IRIS is a multi-model database that delivers fast transactional and analytic performance without sacrificing scalability, reliability, or security. It handles relational, object, document, key-value, and multi-dimensional data in a common, persistent storage tier without any replication of the data.”

Safeguarding the Sanctity of Data

In the world of finance, data isn’t just information but a high-value target that requires the highest standards of protection.

“InterSystems places a high value on data security, particularly in the context of financial services,”

Kenneth begins, delving into the criticality of protecting financial data. He expounds on the multifaceted security measures InterSystems employs, from robust authentication mechanisms, comprehensive encryption protocols, to extensive audit and logging capabilities.

Kenneth underscores the significance of these measures, stating,

“InterSystems also offers compliance support, security patching, threat detection, incident response capabilities, and promotes employee training and security policies to foster a culture of security awareness. Overall, our security measures are essential for financial institutions seeking to uphold the highest standards of data protection.”

Bridging the Gap between Legacy and Innovation

As the financial landscape evolves, institutions find themselves caught between the complications of legacy systems and cutting-edge platforms. This dichotomy can lead to operational challenges and inefficiencies. Kenneth acknowledges this concern, noting,

“For example, the entry of digital-only banks has accelerated the digitalisation of the financial sector, and placed increased pressure on traditional financial institutions to modernise.”

Dwelling on InterSystems’ role in this transition, he elaborates that the company “provides cutting-edge data management solutions to elevate efficiency and innovation and address issues like data silos, outdated data and manual processes to better manage the accuracy, volume, and speed of their data.”

Futureproofing the Financial Realm

Technological advancements like AI, blockchain and IoT are reshaping the financial sector, and other emerging innovations will continue doing so in the coming years. Kenneth declares that InterSystems isn’t just observing this evolution, but is playing an active role in shaping it.

Detailing their proactive approach, he says,

“Our IRIS® data platform integrates advanced analytics and AI/ML for predictive analytics and fraud detection. We also offer blockchain integration for secure transactions and IoT data management for applications like asset tracking.”

He adds that “maintaining scalability, security, and compliance” are all priorities in supporting flexible data models and real-time processing, providing adaptable data management infrastructure to

Kenneth Kuek encapsulates that the ethos of InterSystems goes beyond providing data management solutions. He believes they are partners in the financial journey, ensuring firms are equipped, empowered, and prepared for the future. He concludes that,

“InterSystems embraces cloud deployment, collaborates with industry partners, provides updates, training, and fosters a developer community to stay at the forefront of financial technology evolution, making it adaptable for future industry changes and emerging trends.”