Santiago Castro: Why FBN Bank Put Data at the Heart of its Business Resilience Strategy

Santiago Castro, CDO at FBN Bank, discusses how the bank’s digital
transformation prepared it for the challenges of COVID-19 and how
he’s building even more adaptability into its resilience strategy
going forward

When FBN Bank CDO Santiago Castro was named the bank’s Interim
COO in January, he was unaware of the events that would unfold in
the months ahead. Luckily, he had kickstarted FBN’s digital
transformation two years previously.


In this episode of the Business of Data podcast, Castro outlines
how the COVID-19 pandemic tested FBN Bank’s business continuity
and shares how this has changed the way he thinks about its data
strategy.


“In two weeks, we had to move all the operations to work
remotely,” he recalls. “This pandemic has [been] a real test
scenario about operational resilience and business continuity
because all organizations have had to ensure and prove that
[they] can still work.”


He adds: “We managed to actually work in all our business
processes and business services without interruption, which shows
that in real, extreme scenarios, we’re still resilient.”
How Digitization Improves Business Resilience

Most business continuity strategies focus on scenarios where
company buildings or systems are compromised. But COVID-19 is
also ‘people’ crisis – something that many organizations hadn’t
planned for.


“Not only we had to adapt, [but] we had to also adapt in times
where some people were falling sick,” says Santiago. “So, we
needed to cope with mental health, with stress [and] fatigue.”


Luckily, FBN Bank had already embarked on its data and
digitization journey. Castro’s team has created a data hub, data
strategy and governance policies, so the bank could phase out
many of its old analogue processes.


“We started the journey two years ago to start [digitizing] and
start automating a lot of the processes to start bringing
business intelligence, reporting, analytics and, most
importantly, data flags (or what we call ‘automation of
exemptions’),” he says.


“If two years ago we [didn’t do] this, it would have been very
difficult to work from home,” he continues. “Definitely, having
started the journey has enabled us to be resilient.”


This experience has also changed Santiago’s perspective on the
concept of ‘operational resilience’. He now views FBN Bank’s
continuity strategy as more than a collection of defensive goals
and policies.


“This challenge allowed us to also open our mind to flexibility
to explore new ideas, explore new ways of doing [things] and of
course being progressive,” he concludes. “Now, we’re also putting
in our strategy the emphasis of flexibility and adaptability, and
actually that also makes us resilient.”
Key Takeaways


COVID-19 has been a test for business
resilience. Organizations that depend on analogue or
in-person processes have been severely disrupted by the
pandemic


Digitization can improve operational
resilience. Automating manual processes and digitizing
analogue ones allows businesses to provide services more
flexibly


Data strategy advancement facilitates
digitization. Successful digitization projects depend
on a solid foundation of data strategy, governance and skills