One of the primary drivers influencing IT strategies within Financial Services organizations is the need to collect data from multiple, disparate sources across the organization to be assembled into a new, broader, more comprehensive and more meaningful whole. The intent is to reintegrate fragmented parts of information into a collective unity that when synthesized offers greater value to the business, such as a 360 degree view of the customer, a consolidated account portfolio, or a uniform financial statement. The attempt to effectively homogenize data characterizes the underlying thrust of many technologies in use today by financial institutions, ranging from application integration technologies, such as service buses, brokers, and middleware that attempt to integrate data-in-motion, to ETL and business intelligence tools that attempt to integrate data-at-rest.

However, there are problems, limitations, and costs associated with these conventional technologies. Semantic Technology attempts to redress some of these constraints and offers additional key benefits. This session will describe some of these known constraints, offer an overview of semantic technology, and describe how it may potentially provide benefit—particularly in terms of specific business use cases common to financial institutions.