GIS are today a very useful tool for decision making. Whenever a decision related to ‘location’ is required, the word ‘GIS’ is used. GIS makes these location-related decisions and analyzes very easy. It makes the analysis simple and accurate if the inputs are correct. Therefore, one can have the benefits of analyzing spatial data as well as socio-economic data on the GIS platform.

GIS in developed countries

Developed countries like the US, UK, and Japan are making huge use of this technology in different business sectors as well as development activities like real estate business, banking, information sharing, etc. They use it to take advantage of its functionality and also increase production. With GIS, the productivity is increased and also the decision making works are very easy and accurate.

GIS in Bangladesh

In recent days, GIS technology is used in different sectors of Bangladesh. But the fact is that it only serves to create a resource map or a risk map of an area. The analysis power of this tool is used simply in those areas. Organizations working in the development sector are preparing maps and reports. But the funny thing is that the maps are prepared in a cell. The person working in this cell has a lot of experience with GIS technologies, but has very limited access or time to view the reports. The reports are prepared by someone else who has very limited knowledge of the technology. As a result, the prospect of this vast technology is overlooked. Again, the scope of use of GIS technology is very wide. As mentioned above, location and GIS are related to each other. Therefore, any organization that works with location data can use this vast technology to improve its activities. For example, the banking sector has to work a lot with location. They have to locate their account holders or locate a parcel or property if someone wants to take loans. Once again, any business organization can use GIS tools to increase their business in different areas. They can use this tool to make decisions about setting up their billboards or choosing their routes for the supply of goods. GIS technology can also be used to identify future city growth and establish new areas for business. In the following discussion, the prospects of using GIS technology in the banking sector are highlighted. It is not a full study report. There may be many other places where GIS can be useful for banks to increase their performance and customer services.

1. Decision on sanction of loan-spatial analysis of the plot.

One of the tedious jobs in the banking system is providing a loan service to customers. Banks do it to improve their accessibility to customers. It has been a competition between banks how a bank provides these services. In doing so, banks need certain security such as visible property or established business etc. Now where the visible property comes in, that’s also where the GIS comes in. Banks take mortgage to sanction and specify the amount of the loan. In making such a decision, banks must analyze the property or parcel, such as the distance from the main road or the size of the parcel, verify the actual owner of the parcel, the current valuation of the land, etc. They are doing these things manually by going to sites or contacting third parties to do these jobs. This takes at least 30 days to do the jobs and you also have to spend a lot of money. You also need a lot of time to make the decision. However, there is another possibility to use the same plots for loans from different banks.

But if they have a GIS database, they could easily do the following:

o Perform spatial analysis easily with a single click on the computer.

o Calculate the area or distance from the main road without going to the site/parcel.

o Calculate the land value of the area by analyzing the surrounding area.

o Create a central database system to prevent double borrowers from using the same parcels.

o You can reduce the investment time by 30 days.

This is an important factor for any bank to reduce their investment time. If they can save 30 days they can earn BDT30-40 lacs (US$42,857.14-US$57,142.85) per year.

The bank only needs the following information for this analysis:

o Location of the plot/property (address).

o Name of the owner.

o Plot size (area).

o Distance from the main road.

o Adjacent road width.

o Current land use (specific).

or value of the land.

o Parcel information, i.e. previous owner, case, prior borrowing status, etc.

o Crime rate in the area.

Many of the data such as parcel size, distance from main road, width of adjacent road, current land use, etc. can be derived from the digitized map of an area. Others will be collected from the field level survey.

2. Decision on the establishment of an ATM cabin.

Now overnight banking is increasing rapidly. Every bank is trying to bring services to the customer’s home or office. The ATM is one of them. But to provide an ATM to an area, the bank needs to think about different spatial aspects, such as the concentration of commercial land use, the concentration of debit/credit card holders in an area, the route to take money to the ATM , etc. All of this can be easily done with a GIS tool.

Decision derived from the map regarding the ATM booth:

o Service area of ​​an ATM.

o Factors to establish an ATM.

3. Location of borrowers.

The bank is now spending a lot of money to track down account holders or borrowers. They contact their customer at regular intervals to locate them. This job can be done very easily with GIS as here a borrower or customer can be easily identified on the map. But for this, the database must be updated periodically, as it is currently done.

o Current address of borrowers.

or Change address.

o Distance from the branch and route to home.

4. Better route of the van to deliver money at ATM/branches.

This advantage was discussed a bit earlier. A bank has to think hard to select the delivery route of the van to bring money to the ATMs. They have to think about security. In GIS, they can do this by creating a simple network topology of the existing road and selecting the best routes to earn money.

5. Decision on the establishment of new branches.

As the banking sector is a fast growing field in Bangladesh, many new banks and branches of existing banks are now being established. They must take into account different spatial issues to establish a new bank or branch. For example, they have to do the following things:

o Have a general idea of ​​the area such as land value, socioeconomic condition, etc.

o Locate the commercial land use of the area.

o Locate the bazaar or market area.

o Locate the residential area and the commercial area.

o Locate the existing road network.

All of these things can be easily done with a GIS tool by analyzing and querying to extract the data.

6. Decision on the selection of new investment sites for Banks or clients

Banks can also make decisions to locate or identify new potential sites for new investments through GIS. They can analyze an area with potential for economic growth, the existing development pattern, and make a decision on whether to invest in that area.

With the GIS database, a bank can do the following:

o Regional analysis to identify profitable location to invest.

o Identify different points of attraction in the area.

o Identify the current land use and industry of an area.

Advantages that the Bank can obtain:

o Improve customer services dynamically.

o Considerable reduction in the cost of maintaining and processing the Bank.

o Select the best location to establish a new bank or branches.

o Choose the best route for the money delivery van.

o Secure the loan process by keeping the data in the central database and share it through the online data management process.

o Reduce the number of employees.

o Database maintenance is very easy and the cost is very low.

o Banks can save your investment-related query for one month.

Conclution:

In conclusion, it can be said that banks can have many advantages by introducing GIS in their daily activities. You can save money, time and manpower which are the goal of any business organization. It is very important to manage the data as they will have to deal with a large amount of data. But by establishing a cell or by giving a third party the functions of managing and sharing data, the procedure can be very profitable for banks or other commercial organizations.