Gigabit December 2018

SANTANDER
216
capabilities and more. “Machine learning
is a technology we’re exploring with some
gusto at Santander,” says Hayes. “So far,
it’s been important from an operational
efficiency perspective. It’s going to
change the way we work, the way we
think, the decisions we go through, the
speed at which we interact with our
customers and the offering we can give
them – but to embed machine learning
we need to make sure it’s built with great
data engineering to sit behind it.”
Pearson adds: “Establishing our big
data ecosystem is key to us. We’re still
early on in our journey of AI and machine
learning. Now we have that core data
platform, that’s going to allow us to
explore these new technologies
increasingly as we go forward.”
Hayes, Pearson and the Santander
community all keep a finger on the pulse
of new developments in the evolving
industry, with Open Banking set to take
centre stage. “That changes the game
for us,” says Hayes. “Data is an asset
and this allows competitors to build on
assets we’ve got – when you then throw
in the capability to build AI or run machine
learning algorithms, the opportunity
through technology is massive.”
CLICK TO WATCH: ‘DAVID HAYES, HEAD OF DATA
AT SANTANDER UK TALKS CHANGE CULTURE MANAGEMENT’
DECEMBER 2018