 Hi, I'm Peter Burris, welcome back to theCUBE. Once again, we're here at Oracle headquarters to talk about big data with a number of customers as well as partners. And this is a very, very vibrant space and it's not just vibrant here in the U.S. We've got a number of customers and partners from, they've come a long way, including you, Tomas. Tomas Ernie from Locks On Solutions, all the way from Budapest, Hungary. Thank you very much for being on theCUBE. Thank you for inviting me for this interview. It's actually quite a big challenge to be in this space nowadays because, yes, I completely agree with you. This is a quite vibrant environment where basically not year on year, but week on week, there is something that is new that we'll have to catch up with and understand how we can provide business benefits to our customers. Well, the business is changing, the way of approaching the business, the business models are changing, the technology is changing. Now, Locks On Solutions has been known historically as a provider of advanced solutions and services in the banking and financial businesses. Lot in Europe, lot in the Middle East Africa. Tell us a little bit about Locks On Solutions. Yeah, we started Locks On 17 years ago in 2000. We are ex-bankers and the reason why we founded Locks On was that we've seen a big requirement, a big need in the banking industry for software companies that are specialized in lending and risk management, especially on the emerging markets. We had many solutions that fitted the more developed countries, Western Europe, the States, but at that time, there were very few solutions that gave responses to the particulars, the specialties of Hungary, Central Europe and later on the Middle East, were basically compared to the States. We still face the problem that we simply don't have enough data. And why now, two years ago, we started to deal with big data, was that big data, the new technology, gives us the chance to again use data that we did not have primarily. And we see it as a big shift. So tell us a little bit about that. Are you not seeing enough data in the particular bank and therefore you're bringing data from other places to try to improve the analytics capabilities or that many of the banks that you're working with have historically not thought about how they can move beyond siloed, compartmentalized data sources to integrate it into something that actually delivers a richer analytic environment. Which is it? Well, actually the problem is a little bit deeper because when we see the States, in the States you find 70, 80 years of time series of data, even from the macroeconomic factors. When I look at Central Europe, we had something before the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Then there were a couple of years where everything was changing till say 1995. And then since then we've had time series of data from 1995 till 2008, when there was again a big microeconomic change. So we do not really have the time series because simply historically, there were two huge changes in the political environment, in the economical environment. That's why the data is not comparable. This is one of the problems. And the second problem is that, yes, historically there was much less emphasis on data, even in the institutions. And this is now changing. So we had to build up risk management and the landing, everything from the scratch after the 1989. And there was a big boom, then a crash, then again in the early 2000s, a big boom that lasted until the 2008 financial crisis, then again a crash. And now everybody starts again in the last two to three years, they start again landing. So do you think that the availability of business solutions like those from Lexan is actually gonna help moderate the boom bus cycle in places like Hungary and elsewhere? We hope so. Well, tell us a little bit about how some of the banks that you're working with, especially in these emerging banks, and it's a fascinating way of thinking about a bank emerging as a consequence of the crisis, not just the geographic location or some of the transitions in the geopolitical characteristics of where the banks operates. But tell us a little bit about how some of these banks are evolving to better utilize the solutions that you're providing so that they become more empirical based, they become more data driven. Yeah, I think all of these historical problems have one major advantage to many banks in our region. And this is that many of them have much less legacy than the Western European ones. Plus, because the environment is changing quite rapidly, they already understood that they have to change as well. So there are many banks that are hungry for change and that are ready to invest to new technologies, new business initiatives, and they are constantly looking for ways how they could use the newest technologies to improve the services that they are providing to their customers and to better understand their customers. So in Europe, and especially in the Middle East, there is a very strong wave now for big data investments. And not only big data, because big data is basically a technology. But we don't see big data as a technology. And I think one of the biggest mistakes of many institutions is that for them, big data is a technology, because big data is actually a business enabler. And a way of thinking, a way of doing business. Yes, so when we moved to big data, it was not that, oh, this is a new technology, let's go catch it. No, but as a business solutions provider, we were always looking for ways how to build better models for lending, how to build better models for risk management, how to serve better our customers. And when the new technology came to the market, we have realized that, oh, wow, now we can improve the business cases. And this is how it all started. And I think this is one of the major points when we think of big data. I will always remember roughly two years ago, we had a conversation with one of our customers who wanted to build big data on their data warehouse. And then they came to us asking, okay, guys, so how should we do it? And then we were stuck because you cannot just build big data. There has to be a business driver. And this is where we come to the picture. And this is, for example, one of the reasons why we come together with Oracle, because Oracle has the technology and we have the business use cases to provide business benefits to the customers through the technology. So you can match to the customer problems, but it's a very, you've raised an interesting case or characteristic of many of your customers, it sounds like, namely that the geopolitical shocks that your particular customer class has historically gone through means that they have to be organized around the ability to change quickly. Now that has a major implication, nature of the software that they use, the dependency they have on process versus data-driven solutions. And you're absolutely right, that it's not just about the invention that goes on, it's the social change inside the bank, inside the ecosystem that is crucial to actually getting value out of these things. So where are your customers mainly today? Are they catching up to the rest of the world? Do you think that they're actually starting to lead? It's the way that analytics can be used in banks because of the nature of their banks. Where would you put them on their use of your lending and risk management solution? Well, that's an interesting question. Some of our existing more than 60 customers, I think, are pretty well leading. They are the ones in a very competitive environment who understood that they have to be always one step ahead of their competitors and they like companies who have the same vision. So we have a couple of such customers that are very heavily in large emerging markets, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, or in Asia, in China, in the Vietnam, where the migrants are turbulent and they already understood that this is actually their competitive advantage compared to the other banks. In their own countries and as they try to move internationally? Yes, that they very heavily use technology to provide business benefits because Indian technology serves the business. This is why we are. And there they are, I would think leading because they use the newest technologies, newest risk modeling techniques, newest landing tricks, processes, and they constantly adapt. They are quite agile. Excellent. Thomas Ernie, I want to thank you very much for being on theCUBE. I thank you very much for this interview. You betcha. So Thomas Ernie locks on technologies all the way from Budapest, Hungary. I've never been there. Someday I hope to go. Talking about some of the relationships between geopolitical events and the adoption of technology in what is becoming a very, an increasingly fast changing sector to banking and financial world. Thank you very much, Thomas. Thank you.