With a presence in Spain, Portugal and the United States, the Banco Popular Group is currently the third largest banking group in Spain, with a team of over 14,400 professionals. Informatica Data Quality is part of an operational improvement and customer attraction and retention initiative that began a few years ago. The aim is to ensure that the bank offers all customers the right products for the right situation.

In December 2008, a Quality Office was created within the IT department to look closely at the quality of the data being used, since customers can only be approached with products suited to their needs at the right time based on their personal circumstances, if accurate data is available.

The Quality Office publishes a monthly Data Quality Index based on 23 variables that ensure data completeness and quality. These 23 variables include fields such as name, date of birth, education level, CNAE (standard industrial classification) and CNO (occupational title) codes etc., and are classified as mandatory, necessary or desirable. The mandatory fields refer to regulatory compliance, the necessary fields to business requirements and the desirable fields to 'ideal' data (customers' interests and tastes, for example, for sending personalized offers).

Before Informatica Data Quality was installed, the variable types were distinguished by means of manual programming that was getting increasingly more complex as new requirements were added. For this reason, Banco Popular assessed various tools for data quality automation, eventually opting for the Informatica solution. Since the Banco Popular Group was already working with Informatica PowerCenter to integrate data from the entire Group's data system, it was possible to make use of the data structure developed for this project.

"In view of the excellent results of a proof of concept on 280,000 records, Banco Popular decided to use Informatica Data Quality. The advantages it offered us included a complete dictionary of the existing domains, which is a key aspect for launching offers by email, and it was very easy to use for users without a technical background," explains Alberto Romero, director of Banco Popular's Quality Office. "Our intention is to involve business users -- from branches to regional management -- in data quality so that it is not seen as a task exclusively for IT. Good data quality ensures a better and more effective business strategy."