Data Validation in Consumer Lending

Data is one of the most important assets for many businesses, from lenders to debt purchasers.

Businesses are aiming to be more data-driven and data-focussed, but in practice we regularly see a disconnect between Senior Management’s impression of their company’s data and the reality. Management often have neither the time nor the skillset to access data first-hand. They rely on teams below them, who may provide an optimistic view of the data position.

Data issues cannot always be fixed retrospectively – if data is not stored correctly or structured sensibly then information can potentially be lost forever. An obvious, but surprisingly common, example of this would be a variable value being overwritten with a new value without the history being retained.

Quality, consistency, and accessibility issues may only materialise when the business tries to leverage data to improve sophistication, or more seriously when needing to provide data to investors or regulators. Repeatedly, through our due diligence work we see that businesses cannot produce data tapes to show themselves in the best light, or without inconsistencies between key fields.

Vestigo can undertake a data review to help a business understand if it has the correct platform and data for data-driven decisions and to provide consistent data and insight to investors.

For more information on a recent data validation project that Vestigo worked on with a growing lender, read our case study.