TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION (OVERVIEW)..........................................................2
II. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.................................................................3
III. THE AIMS & OBJECTIVES..............................................................3
IV. RESEARCH APPROACH METHODOLOGY.........................................4
V. RESEARCH ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY............................................5
VI. DATA COLLECTION METHODS.......................................................5
VII. PROPOSED STRUCTURE..............................................................6
VIII. CONCLUSION AND LIMITATION....................................................7
IX. RESEARCH ETHICS.......................................................................7

x.
REFERENCES
...8

I.

INTRODUCTION (OVERVIEW)

As shrinking margins becomes pervasive due to increased competition, having an

information advantage has become one of the key ways of growing and maintaining
profit in the global financial services industry. Organisations in the financial services
industry need to evolve into data-centric organisations before they can succeed in
gaining competitive advantage in todays dynamic, global market place (Pwc, 2013)
Advanced analytics, powered and enabled by big data are drivers of this information
advantage.
Advanced analytics, as defined by Mike Rote, CEO of Teradata, is an application of
various analytic techniques to data in order to solve business problems. IBM (2015)
gave a slightly different definition as they defined it as the grouping of analytic
techniques used to predict future trends. Advanced analytics enables proactive
business decisions and supports continuous learning and improvement.
The interest to use data and advanced analytics to solve different types of business
problems has grown (Delen and Demirkan, 2013). For many financial services firms,
data has become their fourth strategic pillar alongside people, process and
technology. Leading financial services firms are now exploring cutting edge
technologies in analysis and are making more of their key decisions based on
insights from data. They focus their data and analytics on revenue enhancing areas
such as marketing and sales.
The ability for financial services institutions to connect information, identify patterns
and personalise interactions in order to make well informed strategic decisions has
gotten to a level of sophistication that was once only dreamed about. Data and
advanced analytics are being used to personalize products and services, generate
more impact at lower cost, and improve the user experience (Mckinsey,
2015). Alongside its great benefits comes very serious privacy concerns. It gathers
its data from customers transactions, log data, events, search queries, emails, RFID
scans or Point of sale (POS) data, social media, etc. (IBM, 2013) Not only are data
sets generated sizeable, but they also often contain very personal aspects and
information of individuals lives (Stanley, 2012). With such amount of information and
data in the hands of these organisations, it is not surprising that concerns have been
raised over the impact of big data and analytics on privacy.
The risks associated with big data include exposing personally-identifiable
information about customers or the transfer of such data outside a required
geographic area and how it can be manipulated. For example, in 2013, Barclays
Bank announced to its customers that it will be package information about
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transaction on their accounts to compile reports and sell data on their collective
spending and saving habits to third party companies including government.
(thisismoney.co.uk, 2013). This raised concerns amongst its customers. Financial
records are amongst the most sensitive for many customers and they fear the sheer
velocity, veracity and volume of data and information that has been collected, stored
and processed over time by organisations pose great security risks. Therefore,
privacy and data protection have become important issues across every sector of the
financial services industry from insurance companies to commercial banks,
investment banks and broker dealer.
Some say data analytics is a big challenge to privacy protections while the financial
services institutions argue that our privacy requirements hinders reaping the benefits
of advanced analytics (Financial Times, 2015) However, this study believes it is
possible to ensure that individuals have adequate control over their data to prevent
misuse and abuse by the data holders and their third parties while preserving the
value of big data and analytics. This study suggests that financial services
organisations build privacy protections into their business strategies, operational
processes and technology to prevent breaches before they happen.

II.

Research Questions

In order to achieve the aims and objectives of this research, it is important the
following questions are answered:

III.

What are the risks involved with the privacy challenges of advanced
analytics in the financial services industry?
How can the risks associated with privacy breaches in advanced analytics
in financial services be prevented from occurring?

Aims

The aim of this research is to critically analyse the risks associated with privacy
breaches in advanced analytics and to analyse, assess, suggest appropriate method
for organisations in financial services to provide security of consumers data and
information. At the end of this research, the aims of this study are that financial
services companies will as a matter of urgency:
1. Review their current privacy and data protection plans and methods
2. Adequately improve their data protection methods and strategies to prevent
privacy breaches.
3. Adequately monitor their customer records database to avoid sabotage/theft.
This will invariably involve introducing an implementable and actionable method and
process for a robust data protection with the desire for data-driven innovation

Objectives
This study will employ an Applied Research approach to address the risks
associated with privacy breaches in the financial services industry. This research will
provide a conceptual model for mitigating privacy issues, with the aim of introducing
several options, including technology-based option for advancing privacy while
pursuing advanced analytics. Other objectives include:

To identify and analyse the risks associated with privacy breaches in

advanced analytics in financial services industry.
To examine the effectiveness of the current data protection strategies
employed by the financial institutions.
To assess and evaluate technology-based methods as a way of mitigating
the privacy issues associated with advanced analytics in financial services
industry.
To make suggestive recommendation on how financial institutions can utilise
these technologies in protecting customers privacy.

Conclusively, this dissertation is not expected to be comprehensive in detail, but to

draw the attention of future researchers and financial services industry experts to the
benefits of innovative conceptualisation and the utilisation of appropriate
technologies in the protection of customers data by evaluated prediction causes and
suggestive responsive solutions.

IV.

Research Approach Methodology

This research is descriptive and analytical. It will employ both quantitative and
qualitative research approach. Data will be gathered using a quantitative method and
will be analysed using qualitative methods. There will be an extensive review of
various academic literature on the subject and also enquiries through a
questionnaire which will be sent to the financial services organisation in England to
gather investigative results that will help identify the research gap in the current
approach to privacy and data protection. It will also be used to find out the causes of
privacy breaches of customers data in the financial services sector.
From the assertion above, it can be deduced that this is a Basic and Applied
research approach. Because it aims at improving current knowledge on the causes
of privacy breaches of customers data and information in the financial services
sector (Basic Research) and the main objective is to apply appropriate technologybased approach to mitigating customers privacy breach in the financial services
industry (Applied Research)
Furthermore, an inductive approach will be used to get the views of a range of UK
consumers to find out if they trust financial services companies to keep their data
safe and also to find out how prevalent privacy breaches are in the financial services
sector. It will also be used to get their ideas on how these risks associated with
privacy breaches can be managed and prevented.
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At the end of both approaches, the data will be collated and the results will be
analysed and presented.

V.

Research Analysis Methodologies

This study will adopt a positivistic and phenomenological approach for its analysis.
For the positivistic method, a survey will be used while for the phenomenological
method a case study will be used.
Survey: A survey will be adopted because it deals with the people, customers who
are affected by the privacy breaches in advanced analytics. A questionnaire will be
administered to achieve the survey.
Case Studies: Case studies are often applied as an opportunity to study a particular
subject. The operations of financial services companies in England will be studied as
regards to their policies and measures in guarding customers data. With the aim of
gathering and analysing qualitative and quantitative data. Also, the case study will be
descriptive, illustrative and explanatory.

VI.

Data Collection Method (Including primary and secondary

data)

These three principles of data collection will be followed in this research. They are:
multiple source of evidence, case study database and chain of evidence.
Multiple source Evidence:

Case Study Database: This will consist of separate collection of the data and the
reports to form case study notes, case study documents, and tabular materials and
to produce a narrative from the case study.
Chain of Evidence: This involves making a chain study report from interviews and
documents, creation of a case study database, citations to specific evidentiary
sources in the case study database and creation of a case study question that may
arise during the course of the research.
VII.

Proposed structure

1. Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Overview
1.2 Significance of research
1.3 Aims and objectives
1.4 Research methodology
1.5 Structure of dissertation
1.6 Summary
2. Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Advanced analytics and big data
2.4 Advanced Analytics in financial services industry
2.5 Factors Entrenching Advanced Analytics in Financial Services
2.6 Summary
3. Chapter 3: Research methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Contents of research
3.3 Categories of research
3.4 Specific research types
3.4.1 Questionnaire design
3.4.2 Interview design
3.5 Data collection and analysis
3.6 Summary
4. Chapter 4: Finding and analysis
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4.1 Introduction
4.2 Quantitative research findings
4.3 Qualitative research findings
4.4 Summary
5. Chapter 5: Conclusion
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Summary of the research
5.3 Limitation
5.4 Recommendations
6. References & Bibliography

VIII. Conclusion and Limitations

Some limitations may arise due to difficulty of gaining access to financial institutions
in England. However, the information drawn from relevant literatures and responses
from questionnaire will be used to achieve desired results. Also with adequate
application and execution of the methodology explained thus far, the aims and
objectives of this research will be achieved.

IX.

Research Ethics

This research will stick to the requirements of the universitys research ethics which
will conform to the ethical review questionnaire which has been reviewed and
completed on the project Moodle site.

Research Activity Schedule Table

Activities
Drafting of project proposal &
submission of proposal
Literature research

Start time

End time

Duration

29/Oct/2015

06/Nov/2015

2 Weeks

9/Nov/2015

8/Dec/2015

1 months

Draft, disseminate and conduct

interview and questionnaires

9/Dec/2015

8/Jan/2016

1 month

11/Jan/2016

10/Feb/2016

1 month

11/Feb/2016

7/Mar/2016

1 month

Collating of research data,

analyse and interpretation of
data
Review and finalizing
dissertation

References
1. Delen, D. and Demirkan, H. (2013). Data, information and analytics as
services. Decision Support Systems, 55(1), pp.359-363.
2. Financial Times, (2015). Banks warn over European privacy rules - FT.com.
[online] Financial Times. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3d86b6284cca-11e5-9b5d-89a026fda5c9.html#axzz3q7H4laNl [Accessed 31 Oct.
2015].
3. IBM, (2013). Analytics: The real-world use of big data in financial services
How innovative banking and financial markets organizations extract value
from uncertain data. [online] http://www-935.ibm.com. Available at:
http://www935.ibm.com/services/multimedia/Analytics_The_real_world_use_of_big_dat
a_in_Financial_services_Mai_2013.pdf [Accessed 31 Oct. 2015].
4. IBM, (2015). IBM - What is Advanced Analytics. [online] Www-01.ibm.com.
Available at: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/what-isadvanced-analytics/ [Accessed 31 Oct. 2015].
5. Mckinsey, (2015). Protecting student data in a digital world. [online]
Mckinsey.com. Available at:
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/public_sector/protecting_student_data_in_
a_digital_world [Accessed 31 Oct. 2015].
6. Stanley, J. (2012). Eight Problems With Big Data. [online] American Civil
Liberties Union. Available at: https://www.aclu.org/blog/eight-problems-bigdata?redirect=blog/technology-and-liberty/eight-problems-big-data [Accessed
31 Oct. 2015].
7. This is money.co.uk, (2013). Barclays tells customers it is going to start
selling their data as poll finds growing public concern about online privacy.
[online] This is Money. Available at:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2347285/Barclays-tellscustomers-going-start-selling-data-poll-finds-growing-public-concern-onlineprivacy.html [Accessed 31 Oct. 2015].