A Business Analyst's Role in Financial Technology Integrations
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect the perspectives of IIBA.
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Business analysis is a relatively young profession, but it has become central to organizational changes in many industries. In a competitive sector such as finance, the profession is especially valuable.
Innovation is critical to healthy competition. At the same time, business analysis plays a key role in innovative organizational changes. Business analysis professionals are among those who implement these changes smoothly.
As IT systems increase the amount of data they process, business analysts working in the financial technology domain must become “universal soldiers,” with a broad skill set to match.
Business Analysis in Financial Organizations
What distinguishes business analysis professionals working in finance from their peers? Theirs is a complex and developing domain that reflects a globalized, strictly regulated, and highly competitive industry. Mastering that domain requires time, effort, and resources.In addition to the above, modern financial organizations rely heavily on advanced IT systems and large data storage. This often requires business analysis professionals to have additional IT and data analysis skills.
Modern Challenges
One of the significant challenges financial business analysts face is the increasing amount of data processed in an organization’s IT systems. Decisions have become more and more data oriented, so business analysis professionals should have at least some data analysis skills. For now, Excel and SQL skills are still the gold standard, but in my opinion, they aren’t enough. Python programming skills—including knowledge of the language core and major data analysis packages like NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib—may soon be required to address the increasing complexity of data analysis.
Large amounts of data, their variety, and strict competition boost the application of AI tools in the industry. While I don’t expect AI to replace financial business analysts any time soon, I do expect their relationship to be mutually beneficial in terms of capacity.
To address this challenge, IIBA created the Certification in Business Data Analytics (IIBA-CBDA), whose popularity among financial business analysts will only increase. It’s possible that the curriculum of the other IIBA certifications, including the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) certification, will absorb data analysis theory and tooling.
Another major challenge for financial business analysts is the increasing complexity of many financial organizations’ IT systems. This may lead to a more T-shaped skill profile, where some knowledge of neighbouring professions like code writing, quality assurance, and data analysis is coupled with advanced business analysis skills. This drift from specialization to universality affords the practitioner a better understanding of the broader picture.
A good business analysis professional in the financial technology domain should connect different “worlds” within their organization. This means they should be more of a programmer than a finance professional, more of a finance SME than a software developer, and more of a professional than a manager. They should also be able to perform simple data analysis, testing, and script writing. At the expense of the above universality, a financial business analyst could facilitate the smooth implementation of advanced solutions with their teams.
I’ve worked on many financial IT projects. On most of them, I performed some testing, data analysis, and script writing in addition to traditional business analysis tasks. My presence as a universal soldier boosted the team’s performance.
What Lies Ahead
Using my personal experience and intuition, I’ve observed the following three trends within the financial IT domain:- The skill profile of a financial technology domain business analyst is becoming T-shaped (i.e. they’re becoming “universal soldiers”)
- Python skills focusing on data analysis are becoming mandatory, in addition to SQL and Excel skills
- AI tools like ChatGPT are gaining popularity among financial business analysts, and those who learn them are gaining a competitive advantage
As a much-needed universal soldier, a financial IT business analyst should possess some domain knowledge and IT expertise to succeed in a financial organization.
Interested in big data? The Certification in Business Data Analytics (IIBA-CBDA) recognizes your ability to effectively execute analysis-related work in support of business analytics initiatives. Get certified today.
About the Author
Dmytro Lenda has over 15 years of experience in business analysis across different industries and domain areas with a major focus on the finance domain. He currently works for Luxoft USA (a DXC technology company) as a senior business analyst on a project for one of the largest financial organizations globally.
