Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is the next-generation data platform that unifies various tools and services to provide a comprehensive, end-to-end data analytics experience. It combines data ingestion, processing, transformation, real-time event routing, and report building into a single solution. Leveraging AI, Fabric manages and acts on data more effectively, making it a one-stop shop for enterprises needing a cohesive and scalable data solution.

Fabric with OneLake enhances data collaboration by allowing everyone to work from the same copy of data, supporting multiple personas such as analysts, data warehousing professionals, and data scientists. It integrates data from various databases and even from various cloud platforms, creating a coherent data ecosystem. AI is embedded throughout the Fabric stack, boosting productivity and insights with tools like Copilot for Notebooks, Copilot for Power BI and AI skills. With Fabric, you can benefit from enhanced data analytics, improved regulatory compliance, and faster insights, all while staying ahead of industry trends without the burden of constant integration efforts.

The following sub-sections provide more information about the capabilities and uses of Microsoft Fabric:

Modernize data platforms

With the financial services industry adopting advanced AI technologies, Fabric provides a robust data platform that guarantees integrated data access, excellent data governance, and traceability. The incorporation of AI within Fabric services allows financial institutions to enhance operational efficiency and generate valuable insights. Key advantages for financial institutions using Fabric include:

Consolidate data silos

Combine diverse data sources from within the organization, different companies, and various cloud providers into a single, cohesive platform, facilitating a comprehensive view of data and enhancing decision-making processes.

Example: A bank can amalgamate customer information from a CRM system, order details from databases like cosmos db, product categories from Amazon S3, and sales records from Databricks into one integrated Fabric platform. This unified view enables better customer insights, offer personalized services to customers with thorough risk assessments.

Implement comprehensive data governance

Implement stringent data governance policies to ensure data quality, compliance, and security, crucial for financial services that deal with sensitive information. Data governance policies defined once in Purview are honored across Fabric services. As data progressing through services, Fabric offers a detailed lineage of the data.

Example: An insurance company can enforce data governance policies across its data ecosystem to ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA, while also safeguarding against data breaches and ensuring accurate claims processing.

Enable superior collaboration

Financial services clients extensively use the Microsoft 365 applications. Fabric integrates smoothly with Microsoft 365, allowing you to view Power BI reports in Teams, analyze OneLake data in Excel, include live Power BI reports in meetings, present live data in PowerPoint, and more. Fabric enhances collaboration experiences significantly.

Example: A risk manager can pull up the regulatory reports in Power BI, drill down on a number in the report by pulling the OneLake data in Excel, attach the report into a Teams meeting to collaborate with other risk managers.

Leverage industry-leading scalability and performance

Use a cloud-based platform that can scale to handle large volumes of financial transactions and data analytics in real-time, and ensure high performance and reliability.

Example: A financial services partner can offer a scalable data infrastructure solution for investment firms to handle increased trading volumes during peak market hours, ensuring that analytics and transaction processing remain efficient and uninterrupted.

AI readiness

Microsoft Fabric facilitates AI adoption within the financial services industry, providing tools and frameworks that make AI integration seamless. It provides multiple benefits mentioned in the following sub-sections.

Advanced analytics and AI capabilities

Utilize integrated AI and machine learning tools to extract insights from complex financial data, supporting predictive analytics, fraud detection, and tailored customer experiences.

Example: Banks can use AI algorithms to predict customer churn and offer tailored financial products to retain customers or detect fraudulent activities in real-time by analyzing transaction patterns.

Automated processes

Implement AI-driven automation to streamline workflows, reduce manual intervention, and increase operational efficiency.

Example: A mortgage lender can automate the document verification process using AI, significantly reducing the time needed to approve loans and improving customer satisfaction.

Integration with Microsoft AI services

Seamlessly integrate with other Microsoft AI services such as Azure Machine Learning and Cognitive Services to enhance AI capabilities.

Example: Wealth management firms can integrate Azure Machine Learning to build and deploy investment models that provide personalized portfolio recommendations based on real-time market data and individual client profiles.

Data-driven capabilities

With Microsoft Fabric, financial institutions can unlock new data-driven capabilities that drive innovation and competitive advantage.

Real-time data processing

Enable real-time data processing and analytics to support immediate decision-making and responsiveness to market changes.

Example: Trading platforms can process and analyze market data in real-time to execute trades faster and more accurately, giving traders a competitive edge.

Enhanced customer insights

Utilize advanced data analytics to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling more targeted and personalized financial products and services.

Example: Credit card companies can analyze spending patterns to offer personalized rewards programs and targeted promotions, enhancing customer loyalty and engagement.

Risk management and compliance

Implement robust data analytics and AI tools to enhance risk management, compliance, and regulatory reporting, reducing the risk of non-compliance and financial penalties.

Example: Banks can use predictive analytics to monitor and manage credit risk by analyzing customer creditworthiness and market conditions, ensuring regulatory compliance and minimizing potential losses.

Data provider extensions

With the use of data provider extensions, financial institutions can seamlessly connect and integrate data from various sources, enabling more informed decision-making and enhancing operational efficiencies. The institutions can have a broad connectivity to financial data sources of organizations such as Bloomberg and London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The data sources integrate into market data feeds from stock exchanges, connect to core banking systems, transaction databases, or develop custom connectors into proprietary internal systems.

Fabric also helps with seamless integration for holistic financial insights by providing a unified data platform, which helps consolidate data from trading platform, risk management systems, CRMs, and more into a single platform.

Data activator

Data Activator in Microsoft Fabric provides real-time intelligence capabilities that are crucial for the financial services industry. It can be used to detect fraud in real-time by analyzing transaction patterns and identifying anomalies that might indicate fraudulent activities. Additionally, Data Activator helps in monitoring regulatory compliance by continuously analyzing data against regulatory requirements and flagging any deviations. As a result, financial institutions can respond promptly to potential compliance issues and reduce the risk of regulatory penalties.

Copilot in Microsoft Fabric

Copilot in Microsoft Fabric makes data insights more accessible to business users and data professionals alike. For business users, Copilot provides a natural language interface in Power BI, allowing them to ask questions and get meaningful insights quickly without needing to write complex queries. This democratizes data access and empowers users to make data-driven decisions more efficiently. For data professionals, Copilot streamlines the process of building data integration pipelines by automating routine tasks and providing intelligent code suggestions. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to develop and maintain data workflows, enabling data professionals to focus on more strategic tasks.

Security capabilities in Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that lets users get, create, share, and visualize data. For more information, see Security in Microsoft Fabric.

Further, Fabric allows you to access firewall-enabled Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 accounts in a secure manner. For more information, see Trusted workspace access.

What is Microsoft Fabric?