The Jerôme Kerviel fraud case at Sociéte Générale exposed the bank’s inadequate internal reporting tools, so not surprisingly it’s been placing them under review since the incident in 2008. Now, it’s completed a massive overhaul of its business intelligence software, an area other banks are likely to invest more in going forward.

SocGen has invested in a new BI Platform from specialist vendor Microstrategy, which provides consistent business data and a common view for all users in divisions such as sales, financial, marketing and risk analysis. This will affect 20,000 users.

Business intelligence technology is a growth area, suggests Jeff Goldberg, senior analyst at IT consultancy Celent.

“During economic difficulty business intelligence is critical for increasing efficiency, decreasing losses, and preparing for the increased regulations many fear may require more tracking and insight into their data,” he says.

Jean-Louis Tribut, manager of the decision support division of Sociéte Générale, said taking a third-party solution addressed, among other things, the firm’s “global cost requirements”.

And with purse strings tight, most banks will probably take the cheaper vendor route rather than build in-house. Does this mean job creation is unlikely?

Rejeena Bra, banking consultant at technology think Pierre Audoin Consultants, believes BI software is a good place to work at the moment.

“There will be new roles within the vendors, which are likely to see an increase in the business and some opportunities within the banks themselves,” she says. “Because of the legacy systems banks have in place, they’ll need some sort of customisation, and they’ll employ a small IT team for this bespoke work.”