National Bank and SAS – Cooperation for the creation of Analytics Center of Excellence

New, strategic cooperation has been concluded between SAS, a leading analytics and artificial intelligence company, and the National Bank of Greece, the first banking organization in Greece with 180 years of continuous operation, with the object of creating an Analytics Center of Excellence within the bank.

The National Bank, which has a base of more than 5.5 million retail customers and significantly supports the Greek economy, created this center in order to effectively meet the needs of its Digital Transformation. Utilizing SAS Viya through Microsoft Azure and adopting SAS advanced analytics and artificial intelligence technologies, the bank aims to further modernize and improve its profitability.

Through the Analytics Center of Excellence, which is based on an open platform in terms of technology using Python, R, Java, Lua etc., but also in terms of creating exclusive complex graphical analyses, the National Bank seeks to streamline all the analytics processes it has. The solution offered by SAS is to make effective use of all available data and help the organization to implement the appropriate practices that will bring positive results. In addition, the flexibility of the SAS platform combined with the flexibility of the Microsoft Azure platform Cloud helps the organization to tailor the infrastructure to the needs that arise, not only from day-to-day work, but also from new projects that arise in course.

As Mr. Pantelis Maraveas, Assistant General Manager Retail Segments, Bank Analytics & Liability Products at the National Bank characteristically stated: “Investing in analytics is a strategic decision that will help the National Bank achieve its goals. With SAS Viya and its successful development and implementation in a Cloud environment, we have improved the overall performance of the Center of Excellence in developing new analytics infrastructures, significantly reducing costs and complexity of processes and gaining flexibility, speed and efficiency in the way our work. “The long-term and very successful and profitable cooperation of the bank, since 2008, with SAS, has played a decisive role in our selection as the company has created many specialized applications for us, based on its advanced technology.”

Mr. Giannis Papatsiros, SAS Regional Lead for Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria stated: “SAS has deep experience in the challenges of the banking sector in Greece. We are honored that an organization like the National Bank trusts SAS to support it in achieving its strategic goals. The platform on which the Center of Excellence was created, among other things, largely achieves the ‘democratization’ of analytics, giving the Bank the opportunity to utilize its data science talent, but also to attract a high level of potential from the market. »