SAN FRANCISCO — It came as an unexpected bombshell in an Open Mobile Summit panel titled “Big Data/Open Data: Where is the money in mobile data?”

That Wednesday panel covered much turf – exploring everything from wearable computers to the struggles big-time sports teams have in mastering data analytics. But then there was a moment that mattered to financial services professionals.

Panelist John Ahrendt, a senior vice president for enterprise data and analytics at giant Wells Fargo, disclosed that when the bank did “pattern analysis” on its big data it found “125 patterns that are predictive of fraud a day in advance of the fraudulent activity.”

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After the panel's close, in response to a question from a reporter, he declined to offer specifics of the patterns, except that they represented anomalies from the established behaviors of a particular account holder and, importantly, “a day in advance notification is a very long time in fraud prevention.”

Even so, Ahrendt sighed, “There is a lot of hype around big data.”

But, he noted, “What new technology isn't oversold at first?”

In the panel discussion, Ahrendt added that at an institution such as Wells Fargo, making sense of the data is an ongoing challenge. He elaborated: “We have hundreds of systems servicing customers. We have to connect all that transaction data. By no means do we have a complete 360-degree view. We are still closing gaps. Our next challenge will be integrating online and offline data.”

As for mobile data in particular, Ahrendt noted that it presented unique issues and, in particular, “(tracking) cookies don't work in mobile. The technology keeps evolving and always there is more data.”

Ahrendt added, “The term, 'big data' mainly is a misnomer. It's more about unstructured data than big data as such.”

Instant Insights /

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