The use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) by banks

Résumé du document

Nowadays, companies are getting more and more involved in Geographic Information Systems. Indeed, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a new tool for today's businesses. This statement is confirmed by Peter Keenan (2005). There are in fact several reasons why companies are increasingly using GIS. The two major ones are for marketing and for strategic decisions purposes. However, it is interesting to notice that GIS is largely used by the banking sector today for these purposes. First of all, several elements of a definition of GIS are provided. In a second part a brief analysis of the reasons why companies in general are using Geographic Information Systems is proposed. Then, one will be able to identify the different uses of GIS. Finally, to go further in the use of GIS in the banking sector, one will provide information based on articles to detail the conditions of uses.

Extraits

[...] The use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) by banks 1. Introduction Nowadays, companies are getting more and more involved in Geographic Information Systems. Indeed, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are a new tool for today's businesses. This statement is confirmed by Peter Keenan (2005). There are in fact several reasons why companies are increasingly using GIS. The two major ones are for marketing and for strategic decisions purposes. However, it is interesting to notice that GIS is largely used by the banking sector today for these purposes. [...]

[...] Furthermore, according to Willer (1990) a Geographic Information Systems is able to gather, store, recover and create output from geographically referenced data. To complete the definition, one can focus on the evaluation of GIS made by Doyle in 2001. Indeed, the author explains that a GIS is using “data that can be referenced spatially to be organised and analysed”. The major interest of GIS is that it organises data and present them on a maps. The data that can be used for such a point are the followings: demographics, customer segments, household incomes . [...]

[...] (2001) ‘Software review: how is geography supporting marketing in today's commercial organisations?' Journal of database marketing 85- 89 Farhan, B. and Murray, A.T. (2005) GIS-based approach for delineating market areas for park and ride facilities', Transactions in GIS 91- 198 Li, H. (2005) GIS-based site selection system for real estate projects', Construction innovation 231-241 Talbot, C. (1998) ‘Geographic information systems applications in the retail banking sector', European retail digest: 1-6 Websites ESRI (2007). GIS for customer and market analytics [Online]. Available: http://www.esri.com/library/bestpractices/market-analytics.pdf Keenan, P. (2005). [...]

[...] Secondly, the user has to incorporate temporal and economical aspects before obtaining the visual representation of the comparison required What banks are effectively doing with GIS? In their article, Birkin and Clarke (1998) claim that banks have three major interests in using GIS. Indeed, banks use Geographic Information Systems to judge branch closures but also to evaluate branch opening. Finally, it is also use to assess the replacement of a branch with an ATM. Definitely, banks need to understand the market in order to serve better their customers. GIS helps to perform some actions that support this requirement for knowledge (Talbot, 1998). [...]

[...] Moreover, the location evaluation techniques are used by banks to choose the right place to open a new branch (Talbot, 1998). Indeed, each site screening and definition of area is a technique to measure the characteristics of households (for instance: average income), to measure the site attractiveness (for instance: supermarkets) and to measure the competition (for instance: number of others competitors in the area). Therefore, one can say that GIS is providing information to evaluate all the decision factors to the success of a bank-branch and thus help to solve the location dilemma. [...]