From Drones to Data

Lee Easton's professional journey began in drone technology, hence our previous name AeroVision. After graduating college in 2014, Lee created a business utilizing drone technology - focusing on LiDAR scanning for architectural projects. One of the primary services in our old business model focused on developing 3D models based on drone data.

After years, the business gained significant traction, working with major firms and even landing a contract with Walmart. As admirable as the company became, Lee's underlying interest was in drone data—how it could be processed, structured, and visualized. This interest eventually led to securing banking clients, which enabled the pivot into the company today, iDENTIFY—an agency of talented individuals dedicating our resources to solving the intricate data challenges of fintech and banks.

Unifying Bank Data

Today, rather than the roots of drone technology, we've transitioned into our niche market of data solutions for banks. Banks often have inconsistencies with their data, leading to compliance risks, inefficient data querying, or simply inaccurate data. Lee's summarized some common challenges that we face at iDENTIFY:

Transaction Monitoring and Anti-Money Laundering (AML): Ensuring data integrity and hygiene is paramount to finding suspicious data.
Reconciliation and Automation: Cleaning data for usability in automation improves data transparency and reduces errors.
CORE Data Transparency: Helping banks to unify their processor data for a clearer picture of customer activity.

With our mission of unifying bank data, the challenges we face with our clients all stem down to proper data governance and hygiene. Without a solid infrastructure and accurate data, we cannot lift the data into reports that give banks faster-to-market solutions.

Lee notes the following:

"On average, a bank has almost 11 different core systems where customer data might reside. We help identify the missing information between those systems, ensuring consistency and quality."

Snowflake and iDENTIFY

Cloud-based technology is a core component of modern fintech, so we chose the Snowflake platform as our preferred banking data infrastructure mainly due to its support of traditional systems such as FiServ and Jack Henry. As sponsor banks move forward from traditional batch systems, this robust system has shown to be solid but poses some inherent risks due to conventional transaction processing methods. Our team of talented individuals is adept at traversing the challenges of staying compliant while banks migrate their CORE data to Snowflake.

Lee believes that within the next three to five years, most major core providers in the financial industry will adopt cloud technologies like Snowflake. This will pave the way for more seamless, real-time data interactions, boosting security and innovation.

Further, the benefits of Snowflake's data-sharing capabilities have proven quite appealing for companies that opt to utilize Snowflake's data lake. Rather than traditional methods of exchanging static files, Snowflake's platform enables companies to query other data. The data-sharing capabilities open an entirely new horizon for possible integrations and innovation.

Conclusion

Good data management is essential for sponsor banks that leverage modern fintech. Cloud technology - relatively new to traditional systems, shows considerable benefits in efficient querying, data transparency, and better data governance. Lee's insights on the FinWise Eye On podcast were refreshing to hear. From the roots of drone technology to now a team of passionate problem solvers for the banking industry, the team at iDENTIFY pushes our vision of unifying bank data further in an industry that opens up a realm of innovation.

Are you browsing from the community? Or are you one of our esteemed clients? Follow our blog to see how we're shaping the fintech landscape.

‍