With Big Data management techniques, companies can optimize their strategic business planning, by taking advantage of market and companies' data.
Big data has emerged as a powerful tool that organizations can use to leverage data-driven decision making for better strategic planning, determine which market niches of their products, are growing or shrinking, obtain traffic data of their stores or website, determining where they come from, what kind of devices they use, dwell time, and foot traffic patterns to help analyze which promotions and efforts are successfully driving their business.
Location intelligence and POI characterization through Big Data are increasingly being used to make business decisions in the retail, real estate, logistics, and port sectors, among others.
Foot traffic data consists of spatial data (GIS), and is at the core of building intelligent strategies, transportation routes, processes and decision making in both public and private sectors.
What is it?
Foot traffic data associates people's movements with physical locations, and can be collected in different ways, such as WiFi signals, GPS from mobile devices and sensors, providing useful information for sectors like retail, real estate, agriculture, financial services, insurance, tourism, sports, entertainment, among others.
Fitch Ratings expects moderate growth in premiums in Costa Rica, increased interest in personal insurance in Guatemala, and stable performance in Nicaragua and Honduras.
From the report "Outlook 2015: Central American Insurance Sector":
Costa Rica:
Moderate growth in premiums
Since the Costa Rican insurance industry opened up to private competition in 2008, the market has experienced rapid and consistent growth in premiums.
Technisys is the omnichannel digital banking company. It offers technology solutions that allow banks to stand out through their customer experience, increase their sales and dramatically reduce their time-to-market when it comes to launching new financial services. Technisys culture lies on its innovation, its human capital talent and its vision of the future. The digital age represents an unprecedented growth opportunity for the financial service providers, and Technisys helps its customers to differentiate and capitalize it.
Organization that operates in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama
Phone: (506) 2256 7168
An announcement has been made that transition to compliance by financial institutions with the conditions established by law will be carried over to the years 2014 and 2015.
The Treasury Department of the United States, through the inland revenue service (IRS) has announced that it will take into account the "good faith" of financial institutions outside the United States who will have to make adaptations in order to comply with the law and will not issue penalties for delays between 2014 and 2015.
It has been announced that from March Costa Rican banks will be able to allow their customers access to the Central Interconnected System of Payments.
From a press release by the Central Bank of Costa Rica:
A new service has been developed called 'Pagos al Exterior (PEX)' (Foreign Payments), which will allow individuals and legal persons resident in the country, to send and receive transfers of funds to and from accounts in a financial institution located in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. The aim of the service is to provide a fast and secure technology platform for processing commercial payments and remittances in the region.
HSBC Latin America Holdings Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc, has entered into an agreement to sell HSBC Bank (Panama) SA to Bancolombia SA for a total consideration of US$2.1bn in cash.
HSBC Latin America Holdings (UK) Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc (“HSBC”), has entered into an agreement to sell HSBC Bank (Panama) SA to Bancolombia SA (“Bancolombia”) for a total consideration of US$2.1bn in cash, based upon estimated net asset value at completion of US$700m. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions and is expected to complete by the third quarter of 2013.
Fitch estimates that premiums in the region should grow measuredly, with the greatest dynamism seen in Costa Rica, the second insurance market in the region.
A statement from Fitch Ratings reads:
Fitch Publishes 2013 Prospects for the Insurance Sector in Central America.
The outlook on the ratings of insurance companies in different markets of Central America will remain stable in 2013.
A report by Fitch notes the momentum in the insurance sector in Central America and its growth potential.
From the report by Fitch Central America is entitled "Performance of Insurance Industry Central America: Well Positioned for Growth ":
The insurance industry in Central America managed to increase premium production by 12% compared to 2010, where Panama, Guatemala and Honduras recorded an above-average growth.
Panama ranks second in Latin America in number of bank branches and ATMs per 100,000 people with 90.28, surpassed only by Brazil with 99.37.
"Banking, or access to banking services, plays an important role in economic development of countries and in reducing poverty while promoting income distribution."
The article by Ricardo J. Gonzalez in Capital.com.pa discusses the results of the report of the Latin American Banking Federation, highlighting the causes for the high rate of banks in Panama, and "the important relationship between financial strength and economic growth."
Guatemala's "people's banks", that lend to the likes of small shopkeepers, aim to take their business model to the rest of Central America.
G&T Continental and Banco Industrial (BI) run mini-branches where low-income customers can cash cheques, open savings accounts and pay public-service bills.
Boosted by their success, each of the banks is aiming to reach 2,000 branches by the end of the year, some of them in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.