Introduction

At Granum Technologies LLC, our mission is to create lightweight, open-source fintech solutions that democratize access to financial technology. Building upon our experience with products like creditparsepro.io, we're excited to introduce our latest project: RiskRadar.

The Concept Behind RiskRadar

In the financial sector, understanding the exposure of assets to natural disasters is crucial. For instance, lenders financing vehicles or real estate need to quickly assess whether their collateral is in areas affected by events like hurricanes, floods, or wildfires. RiskRadar addresses this need by providing an API that cross-references user-defined geographic and temporal parameters with authoritative disaster data, delivering actionable insights into potential asset risks.

Proposed Architecture

RiskRadar's proposed architecture leverages a robust and scalable approach to ensure efficient data processing and delivery while leaning on the Modern Data Stack:

Data Storage: Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS2) serves as the foundation, offering secure and scalable storage for large datasets.
Containerization: The application is deployed using Azure Container Apps, facilitating seamless scaling and management.
Orchestration: Dagster coordinates data workflows, ensuring reliable and maintainable data pipelines.
Data Processing:
- DuckDB: This in-process SQL OLAP database system enables efficient querying and analytics on large datasets.
- dbt (Data Build Tool): Handles data transformations and cleaning, implementing the medallion architecture to structure data into bronze (raw), silver (cleaned), and gold (aggregated) layers.
Data Lake Management: Delta Lake enhances ADLS2 by providing ACID transactions and scalable metadata handling, ensuring data integrity and reliability.
API Interface: A RESTful API endpoint allows users to input parameters such as ZIP codes and date ranges. The system processes these inputs to return relevant disaster impact analyses.

Data Sources

RiskRadar integrates data from reputable sources to provide accurate assessments:

FEMA's Disaster Declarations: Utilizing FEMA's API, RiskRadar accesses up-to-date information on federally declared disasters, including details on the type, location, and duration of events.
USPS ZIP Code Data: By incorporating USPS data, the system accurately maps disaster information to specific ZIP codes, enabling precise geographic analysis with data often available for collateral.

Conclusion

RiskRadar exemplifies Granum Technologies' commitment to developing open-source fintech tools that address real-world challenges. By providing financial institutions with timely insights into disaster-related risks, RiskRadar aids in proactive asset management and client support. We look forward to collaborating with the community to refine and expand this tool's capabilities.