CaixaBank and Oracle set up a Big Data Centre of Excellence in Barcelona

• The centre will leverage Oracle's experience in deploying new Big Data infrastructure for CaixaBank.
• According to Juan María Nin, Deputy Chairman and CEO of CaixaBank, "being one of the world's first banks to incorporate Big Data into daily business procedures further emphasises our commitment to innovation."

CaixaBank and Oracle will set up a Big Data Centre of Excellence in Barcelona. The technology company will leverage its experience in deploying new Big Data infrastructure in Barcelona for CaixaBank to provide Big Data services to customers across Europe.

CaixaBank and Oracle announced the launch of their Big Data technology project in December 2013, which was subsequently developed in record time. The initial phase culminated with the deployment of infrastructure for a centralized data repository (Data Pool). This unified, fast, flexible, powerful and secure Data Pool is capable of providing simple and rapid responses to any business query, based on the selection of the most appropriate data sets and extracting key business information.

"Being one of the world's first banks to incorporate Big Data into daily business procedures further emphasises our commitment to innovation," explains Juan María Nin, CaixaBank Deputy Chairman and CEO. "The Big Data infrastructure that we have just deployed is totally focused on establishing a clearer understanding of customer requirements and identifying potential service improvements. Thus, the technology is fully coherent with our approach to financial services and our commitment to excellence".

"Data is the fuel of the 21st century", says Loïc le Guisquet, Executive Vice President of Oracle EMEA. "The successful deployment of this infrastructure at CaixaBank is evidence of Oracle's capabilities to be a business partner to our customers. The experience gained will help us to transform the newly-announced Center of Excellence into a Big Data reference site for the whole of Europe".

Centre for training, expertise and new projects

The new Centre of Excellence will provide services such as:

• Training. The Centre of Excellence will help to train new Oracle and CaixaBank specialists, as well as staff from other public and private organisations via agreements with institutions and businesses, running training courses and learning programmes.

• Knowledge management. The centre will generate optimal Big Data solutions working side by side with Oracle development teams. It will also generate industry-specific Big Data solutions, starting with the financial sector, and subsequently share its experience and expertise to develop Big Data solutions across Europe.

• Spreading best practices on Big Data technology and architecture to other countries in Europe. The Barcelona Centre will represent a "mentor", fostering the adoption of optimal Big Data solutions applied to each industry and each specific business case.

• Providing a catalyst to business development and new Big Data projects. Via operations at the Centre, Oracle will seek to create new business opportunities associated with Big Data.

• Representing a driver of Big Data technologies, generating innovative solutions and new technologies that will allow organizations to fully leverage data to enhance their businesses.