GenAI pressures overhaul banks’ data foundations

Financial firms race to strengthen data quality and governance.

Financial institutions across Asia are rapidly reworking their data architectures as generative AI (GenAI) becomes central to analytics, automation, and customer experience. According to Remus Lim, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan at Cloudera, the industry’s ability to scale AI will increasingly depend on its ability to build trusted, governed, and accessible data systems.

Lim said in an interview conducted on the sidelines of the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025, “You can't trust AI without trusted data.” He added that organisations are now “moving beyond just experimental research on Gen AI to operationalising it,” using the technology to drive revenue, reduce costs, manage risk, and enhance customer-facing services.

However, major structural obstacles remain. Lim pointed to decades-old infrastructure. “Some banks have 30–40, even hundreds, of applications, and the silos still continue to evolve.” Without unified governance, security, and user experience, institutions struggle to build GenAI systems that can be deployed at scale.

Unlocking full value requires aligning data with business outcomes. “The full value is all about driving business outcomes,” Lim said. He explained that banks must democratise access to trusted data and ensure clarity around which use cases their AI platforms will support. “It's not technology driven… It's more business driven.”

As agentic AI and quantum computing emerge, governance frameworks are becoming more critical. “Banks are trying to make sure that they are able to trust the data… A lot to do with governance, a lot to do with AI ethics,” Lim said, underscoring the need for stronger foundations before scaling advanced AI.