Regulation is no longer just about policies, paperwork and audits. It is increasingly about data.
If your organization needs to meet requirements such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting (BCBS 239), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or new environmental, social and governance (ESG) expectations, you need to show that the data behind your controls is accurate, complete and reliable. It is not enough to have controls in place. You also need to prove the data supporting them can be trusted.
That is why data quality is no longer a back-office technical task and is becoming a core regulatory control.
Why regulators are looking more closely at data
Regulators are asking tougher questions:
- Can you trace reported figures back to source systems?
- Can you show that data is consistent across different platforms and teams?
- Can you spot and fix errors quickly?
- Can you explain how data moves, changes and is used?
These questions matter because weak data creates real regulatory risk. Inaccurate financial reporting, incomplete customer records and poor visibility across systems can all undermine compliance efforts, including know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) processes.
Why a reactive approach no longer works
Many organizations still handle data quality reactively. When a problem appears, one team fixes it. But without a broader approach, the same issue often appears again in another system, process or team.
Today, you need to build data quality into the full data lifecycle. That means monitoring data continuously, applying consistent rules, and automating validation, cleansing and enrichment wherever possible. It also means making every step visible and explainable.
Benefits of turning data quality into a control framework
When you treat data quality as a control, you move from reacting to issues to preventing them.
That shift helps you:
- Reduce compliance risk
- Produce more consistent, audit-ready reporting
- Improve trust in the data used across your business
- Respond faster to regulatory questions
It also helps your teams spend less time correcting problems and more time acting on reliable information.
How Experian helps your build trust in your data
Experian helps organizations put data quality into practice as a structured, repeatable control framework.
With Aperture Data Studio, you can profile and explore complex data, uncover anomalies and spot hidden relationships across systems. That gives you a clearer starting point, especially when legacy platforms and silos make it hard to see what is really happening in your data.
Aperture Data Studio allows you to define and apply standard rules that support regulatory expectations. Instead of relying on manual checks or disconnected processes, you can monitor data continuously and produce consistent, audit-ready outputs.
- Improve accuracy at scale
Reliable reporting starts with reliable inputs. Trusted data quality helps you cleanse, standardize and enrich data at scale, including capabilities such as address validation, deduplication and data enrichment. That helps you keep customer and operational data accurate and consistent. In areas such as AML and KYC, even small improvements in data accuracy can make a big difference. You can reduce false positives, improve risk detection and strengthen compliance processes overall. - Create a clearer view of customers and counterparties
Many regulations depend on having one accurate view of a customer, counterparty or exposure. Matching and entity resolution capabilities help you connect fragmented records across systems with greater precision. That makes it easier to spot relationships, reduce duplication and avoid missing the links that matter most. - Make your controls easier to explain
Strong controls need strong visibility. Regulators expect you to explain how data is created, transformed and validated. To accomplish this, you’ll need data lineage and governance capabilities that help you document rules, transformations and controls clearly. That visibility makes it easier to answer regulatory questions and demonstrate confidence in your data processes.
Compliance is only part of the value
Better data quality does more than support compliance. When your data is trusted, you can make decisions faster, reduce manual effort and improve the experiences you deliver to customers. What starts as a regulatory requirement can quickly become a business advantage. In other words, data quality does not just help you stay compliant. It helps you work smarter and compete more effectively.
As regulation evolves, organizations need to see data for what it is: the foundation of compliance. By identifying critical data elements, setting clear quality standards and monitoring data continuously, you can turn data quality into a stronger control. With the right tools in place, that control can scale with your business.
Data quality is no longer just a supporting function. It is becoming one of the clearest ways to build trust, improve resilience and turn compliance into competitive advantage.
Get in touch with a data expert to explore how Experian can help your organization.
See how Experian’s trusted data quality solutions support AI initiatives, regulatory compliance, and confident business decision-making.
Learn how Aperture Data Studio enhances data quality inside Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud with secure, in-place data processing.
SMS marketing is a growing channel that businesses are just beginning to understand the power of. However, it is a balancing act as you step into the personal realm of a consumer’s cell phone to know what the correct balance for appropriate engagement is. “With global smartphone penetration at more than 70 percent and corporate website traffic accessed by mobile devices averaging nearly 50 percent, organizations must consider mobile tactics a standard part of their program design.”1 With these growing statistics, it goes to show us that this is an expanding field that we should keep a close eye on. Before we get into how to get started and best practices, let’s level set on what SMS (text message) marketing is. As one can guess, it’s messaging through your mobile device. Furthermore, “it’s a form of opt-in marketing that requires contacts to subscribe. This differentiates it from social marketing, where the marketer posts public content that people can choose to like or follow.”2 Now, we will discuss how you can start to create your campaigns, along with considerations to keep in mind while building out your marketing program. How to get started Your first step is to make sure you have the right phone numbers to reach your customers. Otherwise, you may be targeting the wrong people. Or worse, you may not see any return on investment on your marketing campaign. You can do this with phone verification software.Phone validation is the process of checking if a phone number is accurate. It lets you find out if the phone number you have for a prospect or customer is active and able to receive calls or texts—perfect for text message marketing.Basically, the validation process works by running the phone number through a database, finds the phone number, and checks if it’s active. It does this by sending an invisible message to the owner’s phone, which the owner cannot see. A phone verification software can also collect information like phone type (cell phone or landline) and network provider. Going beyond text message marketing, this can also help your customer service reps and sales reps ensure they have the right phone numbers to help reach prospects and clients. Our latest research shows us that 94 percent of business leaders say the quality of contact data has become more important over the last 12 months. More specifically, 57 percent of those same business leaders say phone data has become more important over the last year. In a digital world, you have to go beyond traditional advertising and capture consumers’ attention while they are on the go. That’s why text message marketing is so important. Best practices for text message marketing Gain your prospect’s trust first As we indicated earlier, SMS should be an opt-in service. It is essential to obtain opt-in from your prospects and customers. To do this, consider using your email channel to offer discounts if your prospect signs up for SMS. If you do not follow the opt-in protocol, you risk creating the view that you are spamming them–potentially losing the customers’ trust in your brand. Ensure that you are sending out quality, personalized messages Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: The best texts are the ones that capture your attention and are personalized to you based on your past buyer behavior. “The weakest messages contain no personalization, while the best personalized messages offer relevance without violating a consumer’s privacy.”3 Start exploring personalization by mentioning the customer’s first name in the message. If there are areas of voluntary information within a customer’s profile, these fields could be leveraged as well. For example, if I were a dog toy company, an eye-catching text message could state, ‘Hello Phylicia, your dog Conway might want a Halloween treat this month. Click here for 10% off!’. Simple personalization tactics such as this can make the customer rethink that they do want to treat their dog to a special toy. Be clear and concise Requiring that visitors conform to specific formats may ensure that data is structured correctly for your database but could confuse customers whose data doesn’t conform, causing friction and chancing abandonment. Do your research on message character count limits to craft the most concise message possible. Your message should clearly identify an action that you are trying to have your customer engage with. Think of it from your POV: If someone is sending you a promotional text, you probably want it to be short and sweet so that you can read it quickly and identify whether you will act on the text. A message that is too long or accidentally cut off is a fast way to lose someone’s attention—or worse, have them opt-out of your promotional texts entirely. We have explored what SMS messaging is, along with tips to get started and best practices to keep going. We hope that you have received some helpful insight into how to start to get your prospects’ trust when you begin your campaigns, how to ensure the messaging is tailored to that customer and the importance of being clear and concise with message delivery. Contact us to learn more 1Foundational Mobile Considerations for Demand Marketing. (2020). Foundational Mobile Considerations for Demand Marketing. Published.2Christina Newberry, C. N. (2021). The Beginner’s Guide to SMS Marketing: Everything You Need to Know. The Beginner’s Guide to SMS Marketing: Everything You Need to Know. Published.3Mobile Messaging Best Practices Illustrated: Marketing report by By Julie Ask with Fiona Swerdlow, Cole Walsh, Peggy Dostie (Forrester)
