Announcing the winners of Tearsheet’s 2025 Data Awards

As apps and institutions further integrate, data and data sharing have become the building blocks of modern finance. Entire ecosystems are being built around financial institutions and fintechs that incorporate rich and impactful information about their customers.

Tearsheet’s Data Awards 2025 are the industry’s top awards program, recognizing and celebrating the best data products, services, and brands powering the modern financial system.

…and these are this year’s winners!

Data Innovation Award: Rocket Software

Rocket Software’s DataEdge platform addresses one of the financial industry’s most persistent challenges: unlocking the value of data trapped in legacy mainframe systems while enabling modern cloud capabilities. As financial institutions increasingly adopt hybrid cloud environments—a market projected to reach $262 billion by 2027—the need to seamlessly integrate decades-old transactional data with new analytics and AI tools has become critical.

The platform’s innovation lies in its ability to bridge mainframe, distributed, and cloud environments without compromising operational continuity or security. DataEdge enables real-time data access and integration across complex technology stacks, addressing the fact that only 28% of IT leaders report using their transactional data to its full potential. The solution auto-adapts VSAM data into SQL-compatible formats while maintaining data integrity and preserving compliance requirements.

Real-world implementations demonstrate the platform’s impact. A global systemically important financial institution used DataEdge to achieve an 87% automated data stitching rate, completing regulatory compliance tasks in 11 weeks instead of months while maintaining monthly software releases. A German insurance company modernized its VSE mainframe infrastructure with 99.9% uptime, completing the project 50% faster than traditional approaches while reducing training time by 75%. These results showcase how DataEdge enables financial institutions to modernize legacy systems without disruption while unlocking real-time insights for competitive advantage.

Best Alternative Data Vendor: Carpe Data

Carpe Data wins this award for the second consecutive year, addressing two critical challenges in the insurance industry: fraud detection and commercial underwriting efficiency. With insurance fraud resulting in over $300 billion in losses in 2023, Carpe Data’s solutions have demonstrated measurable impact for major carriers.

In 2024, Carpe Data’s platform uncovered over 74,000 contradictory fraud alerts, which the company reports saved customers $233.3 million. Their Online Injury Alerts service automatically monitors millions of online sources including social media, local news, and public records. According to Carpe Data, carriers using their platform uncover 20x more fraud than traditional identification methods, while delivering 5-10x more actionable evidence than competitors.

On the commercial underwriting side, Carpe Data’s Minerva Risk Score and Commercial Solutions aim to replace manual processes with automated intelligence. The platform generates predictive insights in under a second using just a business name and address, reportedly reducing review time by 15-30 minutes per application.

Best Customer Data Implementation Award: KlariVis

KlariVis wins the Best Customer Data Implementation Award for transforming how community banks access and utilize their data. Since 2019, the company has empowered over 100 financial institutions to gain actionable visibility into their operations through a configurable, cloud-based analytics platform designed specifically for community banking needs.

Built by former bankers who experienced the frustration of data trapped in siloed systems, the platform consolidates essential information into intuitive dashboards accessible across the entire organization. The solution requires no technical expertise and can be implemented in 60-90 days, making advanced analytics accessible to institutions with limited resources.

KlariVis’ Transactional Intelligence suite, developed based on client advisory board feedback, helps financial institutions deepen customer relationships and uncover revenue opportunities. Through regular Innovation Summits and continuous product development driven by user input, KlariVis demonstrates how effective customer data implementation can drive meaningful business outcomes for community banks competing against larger institutions.

Best Integrated Data Management Platform: Pentaho

Pentaho wins the Best Integrated Data Management Platform award for its comprehensive approach to unifying data across financial institutions. The Pentaho+ platform combines data integration, analytics, cataloging, optimization, and quality management into a single solution designed for the regulatory demands of financial services.

Rohny Kolli at Fannie Mae highlights the platform’s impact: “Pentaho Data Catalog gives us real-time insights into how our data is changing over time and helps us ensure that all our data files are stored in the right places to support smooth, standardized operations and compliance with internal guidelines.”

The platform’s strength lies in delivering what Pentaho calls “AI-grade data fitness”—enabling financial institutions to manage and derive value from data in an AI-driven world. With automated compliance workflows, real-time analytics, and unified governance capabilities, Pentaho+ helps financial institutions transform scattered data sources into actionable insights while maintaining the security and compliance standards essential to the industry.

Best Data Partnership Excellence Award: Merge

Merge wins the Best Data Partnership Excellence Award for demonstrating how strategic partnerships can transform customer experiences through seamless data integration. The collaboration with BILL, a leading financial operations platform for SMBs, showcases the power of unified APIs in solving complex business challenges without draining internal engineering resources.

BILL needed to enhance their business card solution by automating user-provisioning tasks and integrating with customers’ HRIS systems. Rather than building these integrations in-house, BILL partnered with Merge to leverage their Unified API platform. The result: 40+ HRIS integrations that automate onboarding, sync employee information, and streamline offboarding processes—eliminating manual work and reducing human errors.

What sets this partnership apart is Merge’s comprehensive support approach. Beyond technical implementation, Merge provided on-site training for BILL’s customer-facing teams on selling and supporting the new integrations. As Alex Giddens, Senior Product Manager at BILL, notes: “This took additional work off of my team’s plate and has helped us take the integrations to market more efficiently.”