Comprehending the role of Big Data in developing countries: the case of financial industry in Egypt

This study examines the relevance and importance of Big Data (BD) indeveloping countries’ financial industries using Egypt’s banking sector as anexample. In many contemporary societies and their businesses, information isincreasingly becoming the most significant resource and the basis forcompetition. Hence, BD is unsurprisingly becoming an essential asset for manysectors, including financial services in general and the banking sector inparticular. There is also evidence suggesting that globally, the finance industry– especially the banking sector- is beginning to tap into BD’s potential. Itsimpact extends from better customer services to regulatory enforcement,monitoring, risk prevention, and fraud detection. However, in emergingeconomies such as Egypt, BD is in its infancy. Consequently, there is minimalresearch literature on the role and extent of BD within the banking sector. Theaim of this study is, therefore, by using the Egyptian banking sector as anexample, to explore and then showcase the emerging role and impact of BDwith/in the financial industry in the developing countries, which will help explainthe extent of BD and uncover the gap by using a substantive theory. Therefore,to support the argument made in this study, appropriate empirical evidence iscollected from diverse stakeholder groups in an Egyptian bank, using theConstructivist Grounded Theory method. This qualitative research, therefore,produced extensive evidence resulting in further new insight into howstakeholders construct the concept of BD, frame the ways harnessing BD canbe managed with a further suggestion to future research and assess theapplication and sustainability of BD in the broader financial industry across thedeveloping world.