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P u b l i s h e d by F i e rc e M a r ket s
C u s to m P u b l i s h i n g

Using intelligent archiving and retrieval

to provide a competitive edge for
financial companies in the data age.

Building a
Better
High-Volume
Document
Archive

S P O N S O R E D BY

BUILDING A BETTER HIGH-VOLUME DOCUMENT ARCHIVE

Todays companies have a data issue. The 2014

IDC Digital Universe Report found that the digital
universe is doubling in size every two years as
more and more data is created and stored. By
2020, the data and documents we create and
copy annually will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44
trillion gigabytes.1 Financial institutionsincluding
the investment companies and banks that house
more data than any other industries according
to a 2013 report by McKinsey Global Institute2
are particularly challenged in managing the sheer
volume of data they are required to retain.

Dealing with Storage Woes

This highly regulated sector must maintain detailed

customer, transaction, performance, taxable income,
and other data and documents for each customer.
Financial institutions must abide by specific
government retention and disposal schedules. For
example, the Internal Revenue Service typically
requires that individuals and businesses keep various
records for three to seven years or longer. Longterm investment records may need to be kept for
the life of the investment. In addition, if a customer
needs copies of such records, he or she will turn to
the financial institution to retrieve them. Financial
institutions also need a complete historical record for
their own business purposes, such as analyzing past
performance and projecting returns and growth.
Storing such enormous amounts of documents
isnt an easy task. Billions of print streams in
formats like advanced function presentation (AFP)
documents stored on mainframes may need to be
transformed to other file formats such as printer
control language (PCL), Metacode, dynamic job
descriptor entry (DJDE), portable document
format (PDF), or even image files depending on
the need to match storage system requirements
and size considerations, be compatible with other
systems, be easily retrievable or meet other needs.
At the same time, sensitive financial and personal

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identification information needs to be protected,

while document size needs to be reduced to ensure
the most efficient storage to better control costs.
The result is a tremendous amount of data and
documents in a variety of formats that needs to
be stored and retrieved easily and efficiently. In
this on-demand world, customers expect access
to their data quickly and easily. Losing their faith
and confidence could mean losing their business.
As the volume of documents grows, financial
institutions need solutions to transform and securely
archive them in formats that are appropriate
for loading into the target archiving system,
efficient to store, and easy to search, retrieve
and present to customers or use for reporting.

Adopting a New Approach to

Document and Data Management

Although paper-based information systems have

long been replaced with electronic systems,
the ability to retrieve data accurately and
efficiently still isnt a given. Some electronic
systems can be complex and have substandard
search functions, making it difficult to locate the
exact pieces of information needed, let alone
delivering them in a format that is useful. Being
able to securely archive data in an intelligent,
useful, organized way is an imperative that
can pay off in a number of ways, including:
Easier compliance with regulatory
and reporting requirements.
Enhanced customer service capabilities
and customer satisfaction through
on-demand information access.
Reduced time and expense related to highvolume document preservation and archiving.
Efficient storage requirements due to cost
efficiencies from reducing typical document size.
Effective enterprise data and high-volume document
archiving systems can be used to store millions
and millions of statements, transaction records,
reports, policies, images and other documents.
Effective systems have three key components.
1. The system should facilitate easy output
transformation between formats for effective
storage and use. A strong system will allow users

BUILDING A BETTER HIGH-VOLUME DOCUMENT ARCHIVE

to merge or split various print streams as required

and convert them to the most efficient formats,
reducing size when possible. Data-dense files
should be easily converted to the best format
for their intended use. The system should have
robust options to convert many documents
quickly and easily into various formats, such as
AFP, PDF, TIFF, and others before archiving.
2. By reducing document size, a financial institutions
data archiving and storage system should
allow for more cost-effective storage, while a
comprehensive indexing system supports efficient
organization and access. Intelligent systems
rely on indices or metadata associated with
individual documents to quickly and accurately
identify them and retrieve them through search.
3. A financial institutions system should be
able to handle high document and data
volume, measured in terabytes or millions
of pages, with ease and store years worth
of data in an organized, efficient manner.

Although paper-based information

systems have long been replaced
with electronic systems, the ability to
retrieve data and documents accurately
and efficiently still isnt a given.

The OpenText Answer

To be an appropriate solution for the unrelenting

and changing needs of financial institution
high-volume document archiving and storage,
a document archiving and storage system
needs these capabilities. OpenText offers
financial institutions a sophisticated, efficient
solution with a number of features that
directly serve the sectors needs, including:
Effective handling of large output loads
in terabytes and millions of pages.
Support for a range of conversion formats,
including AFP, PCL, Metacode/DJDE, XML,
image, PDF and others, allowing easy file
transformation to desired formats.

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Loading capabilities to a number

of leading archives.
Automated, high-volume indexing,
resource extraction, and loading for fast
document search and retrieval.
Seamless integration with existing architecture
and customer-facing applications to create
a better experience and enhanced loyalty.
By making storage and retrieval easier and by
providing the ability to extract content from within
documents, strong systems also reduce the amount
of time and effort required to access, utilize and
present specific data from documents, which saves
time and money while improving productivity.
Customers benefit because they have greater access
to the information they need when they need it.
Such transformation, indexing and storage
capabilities are critically important for adhering
to strict regulations regarding document and
data retention. In addition, regular document and
data purging is an important part of managing
the organizations data and safeguarding both
customers and employees sensitive personal and
financial information. For example, the GrammLeach-Bliley (GLB) Act requires financial institutions
to employ specific safeguards when disposing of
customer information.3 Being able to easily find

and extract data for disposal, reporting or other

uses is essential for proper compliance and general
good business practices in a number of areas.
What does this look like in action? Recently,
the largest bank holding company in the U.S.
which has more than 5,600 branches, worldwide
operations in more than 60 countries and
approximately $2.5 trillion in assetsneeded a
solution that would normalize print streams for
all statements into a common AFP format and
do so quickly. OpenTexts solution delivered,
providing advanced transformation capabilities
that standardized incompatible document
formats and helped the bank bust disparate
silos of documents and information at a rate
of 2.5 million pages per hour, with an average
transformation time of 149 milliseconds.

Choose the Right Tools

Financial services companies must meet high

thresholds of regulatory requirements, while also
exceeding customer demands for responsiveness
and trust. The ability to transform, index, archive
and locate this information quickly and efficiently
is a business imperative critical for a well-managed
organization. OpenText helps some of the sectors
largest and most successful institutions navigate
complex requirements and regulations in an
increasingly data- and document-dense world.

Sources
1

IDC, The Digital Universe of Opportunities: Rich Data and the Increasing Value of the Internet of Things,
April 2014. http://www.emc.com/leadership/digital-universe/2014iview/executive-summary.htm

 cKinsey Global Institute, Game Changers: Five Opportunities for U.S. Growth and Renewal, July 2013.
M
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/americas/us_game_changers
Federal Trade Commission, Financial Institutions and Customer Information: Complying with the Safeguards Rule, April 2006.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/financial-institutions-customer-information-complying#how

3

About OpenText

The OpenText Output Transformation Division provides solutions to create, transform, store and deliver
system-generated, high-volume print stream output for batch production printing, content repurposing and
re-engineering, indexing and archiving, archive migration, real-time online and mobile presentment as well as
accessibility compliance (Section 508 and WCAG compliant output). These solutions are selected by the worlds
largest organizations in Financial Services, Telecommunications, Insurance and Government sectors for their bestin-class performance, scalability, rock-solid reliability, and ease of configuration through powerful graphical user
interfaces.
To learn more about OpenText Output Transformation solutions, visit ccm.actuate.com

BUILDING A BETTER HIGH-VOLUME DOCUMENT ARCHIVE