The Royal Bank of Scotland is deploying ground-breaking analytics to deliver a new class of service to its business clients.Its analytics division has developed techniques that allow it to map and monitor cash flows in supply chains and then use the resulting insights to provide an early warning to clients about potential problems. According to Alan Grogan, chief analytics officer for the RBS, this helps reduce risk for its business customers, and helps recast what was a banking relationship into more of a banking partnership.Delivering the international keynote address at FST Media's Future of Banking conference in Sydney last week, Grogan said that he saw his role within the bank as "turning data into money"."Every piece of corporate bank data goes through my team," said Grogan.Increasingly, banks are exploring how they can harness big data to reduce their own risk by spotting patterns that suggest a client may be about to default on a loan and stepping in to offer alternative payment plans ahead of that default, or using the insights gleaned about customer spending habits to offer a bespoke mix of products and services.An in-conference poll conducted at last week's event revealed that more than a third of delegates believe that big data and analytics will prove a game changer in financial services.RBS, however, is taking the approach to a whole new level. Grogan also described an initiative being planned for the coming year where the bank has taken third-party geospatial data showing levels of sunlight in business districts and merged that with a database of its clients' premises. It then assesses the solar potential of these premises to determine whether it might make sense for the client to install solar panels.Grogan envisages the bank then approaching potential clients with a proposal that they apply for government rebates to install solar panels and then feed the resulting electricity into the grid to help lower their power bills."Banks have all the data to free up wealth in the economy," said Grogan, who said he saw it as part of a bank's duty of care to its customers to unleash the value in the data. It was, he said, also "business insurance to make sure we are around for another 100 years", which is particularly important to a bank like RBS that came badly unstuck during the GFC.Harnessing data analytics for internal or client use will, however, demand access to specialist skills which are already in short supply. Technology analyst Gartner has predicted that 4.4 million data scientists will be needed to meet demand by 2015, which, given the current IT skills shortage forecasts, will be impossible to find.Grogan indicated that he needed about three specialist data analysts to properly support a team of 10 bankers.