Finance On Windows

finance
on windows
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secure, reliable public and private
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Microsoft technology in banking, capital markets and insurance
onwindows.com
The big switch
How Intertech switched Eurobank Tekfen’s core
banking systems with confidence in just one weekend
Winter 2010 £9
Online banking | Offering more via the Web
Wealth management | Attracting hard-to-reach clients
Cloud computing | The future for financial services
forEword
winter 2010
Back in
the game
finance
on windows
Editor Rebecca Lambert, [email protected]
Features editor Lindsay James News and online editor Karen
McCandless Senior writer Michele Witthaus Head of editorial
Adam Lawrence
Editorial contributors
Mike Davies, Aia Software, Steve Hall, Kingston Technologies, Jojy
Matthews, Capgemini, Vincent van den Bogert, Figlo, Katharine
Wolstenholme, Moore Stephens
Green IT advisor
Dr Bernd Kosch, Fujitsu Technology Solutions
W
elcome to the Winter issue of Finance on Windows. From 25-29 October this year, over
8,000 delegates attended Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam. A week full of exciting payments
and securities industry-related announcements, the event signalled the return to confidence
(albeit cautious) for an industry that has been dealt a succession of blows over the last couple
of years. Microsoft was proud to announce a number of ground-breaking developments,
including a new cloud solution offering with Misys. You can read more about this on page
9 as well as what cloud computing means for the financial services industry in general in a
feature article headed up by Microsoft’s Bindia Hallauer on page 38.
With the much-anticipated Windows Phone 7 now hitting the shelves, this quarter has
been an exciting time for Microsoft in more ways than one. The Windows Phone 7 launch
presents a new, untapped opportunity for the financial services industry in connecting with
customers, providing additional services and achieving internal efficiencies. In addition to
our usual news, views and case studies, in this issue you can also read about why today’s
online banking services need to go beyond the passive provision of information in our
online banking feature, as well as what wealth managers can do to attract today’s hard-toreach clients.
I hope you enjoy the issue.
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Contents
winter 2010
News
08
Find out what happened at this year’s Sibos, how Windows Phone 7 can make it in
the corporate world and why Karen Cone is excited about her new role at Microsoft
Viewpoints
18
Thought leadership from Capgemini’s Jojy Matthews on how to operationalise a
data quality program, Kingston Technologies’ Steve Hall on SSD drives, plus insight
from Moore Stephens’ Katharine Wolstenholme and Vincent van den Bogert at Figlo
Cover story
All systems go
08
22
Lindsay James finds out how Eurobank Tekfen succeeded in switching its core
banking system over in just a weekend
Features
No limits
26
Why today’s online banking services need to go beyond the passive provision
of information, and instead offer an interactive, insightful experience that
provides real value to customers
After the storm
34
As the global economy continues its recovery, Jasmine Yalds finds out what
wealth managers can do to attract today’s hard-to-reach clients
The cloud
38
We find out what cloud computing can do for the financial services sector
22
Focus: insurance
Documents: the best practice approach
42
Mike Davies looks at how insurers can transform document templates into
information assets
In practice
38
26
44
Successful implementations at Nationwide Building Society, Man and
Skandinavisk Data Center
Signing out
Looking ahead
48
Rebecca Lambert examines the role of the mobile phone in retail banking
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ISSN 1473-2173
Finance on Windows is Microsoft's quarterly
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partners
winter 2010
Finance on Windows is produced in partnership with Microsoft (NASDAQ ‘MSFT’), the
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define SOA and semantic definitions
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by bankers and insurers to share
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Sibos 2010: a showcase for success
Sibos welcomed over 8,000 delegates to the RAI convention centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Sibos 2010, the biggest event of the year for the
payments industry, came to Amsterdam from
25-29 October. With over 8,000 delegates, the
event helped to restore confidence in the financial
services industry after a difficult year. Microsoft
was there in force, sharing its stand with Luup,
Trintech, Stratus, Temenos and IM Group.
Demonstrated on a Windows Phone 7
handset, the industry-first Luup Mobile Remote
Authorisations product attracted significant
interest. It enables authorisations to take place
remotely by multiple peer or hierarchical
signatories at different locations, all within
seconds via a mobile device. “Corporate
payments innovations are gaining considerable
momentum at Sibos and our collaboration
with Luup is a natural step as we expand in the
www.onwindows.com
payments integration market,” said Karen Cone,
general manager of Worldwide Financial Services
at Microsoft. The solution is built on Microsoft
BizTalk and integrates with Temenos T24.
Fundtech also demonstrated Mobile
ACCESSplus, the first ever corporate mobile
banking platform, which can run on Windows
Phone 7. “We are the first to come to market
with this important solution, which will help
increase productivity,” said George Ravich,
executive vice president and chief marketing
officer at Fundtech.
Many, including Aleksandra Green of Fiserv
and Mike Foley of peterevans, voiced the
opinion that they expect mobile banking to
overtake online banking in the future. Green also
highlighted the importance of branch banking as
the company launched its latest branch solution,
Aperio Teller Seller. “We want branch workers to
be more than just tellers and to instead play an
advisory service role,” she explained.
The cloud was another major theme at Sibos
with the announcement of a strategic partnership
between Misys and Microsoft to extend the
BankFusion Universal Banking solution to the
cloud via the Windows Azure platform. Both
companies talked excitedly about the partnership
and expressed their opinion that together they can
produce a world-beating cloud computing offering.
“We enable companies to gain an advantage
by being able to leverage their existing
investment in technology and not having
to completely replace it. With the cloud,
companies don’t have to worry about peaks
Cloud computing innovation
SIBOS
FACT
CitiBan
k
to the revealed th
at visit
Siboss
s
its We
b site pecific part
ha
of
five pe
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due
by
Twitte
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to the
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So
urce: C
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The cloud continues to gain traction in the financial services industry
Misys and Microsoft have partnered to deliver
Misys’ banking and capital markets applications
via the Windows Azure cloud platform. The
technical collaboration with Microsoft was
announced at Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam.
The solution, which is built on state-ofthe-art BankFusion technology, adheres to a
rigorous set of standards but is unconstrained
by proprietary infrastructure, therefore
making it possible to run the solution in the
cloud. Both companies have already received
significant interest from banks looking to
reduce complexity and operational risks by
and troughs in usage as running in the cloud
means being able to scale,” said Cone.
Joe Pagano, managing director of Banking
and Capital Markets for the Worldwide
Financial Services Industry Group at Microsoft,
also revealed what technologies he thinks
will play a major part in the financial services
industry. “PowerPivot in Office and SharePoint
2010 and complex event processing technology
for capital markets will both be crucial.”
In other news, SunGard launched a new
trending and analysis tool for its IntelliMatch
reconciliation and exception management
solution. IM Group’s managing director Ian
McHugh also discussed the upcoming projects
his company is undertaking in the risk and
compliance arena.
running their systems in the cloud.
“We have witnessed a growing interest in
new variable cost models and on demand
service models such as those emerging in
cloud computing, or newer forms of managed
and shared services, and outsourcing across
a variety of technologies and services,” said
Rodney Nelsestuen, senior research director,
TowerGroup. “These emerging approaches
offer large banks the opportunity to leverage
scale while smaller banks can compete
effectively through shorter time to market and
lower upfront investment.”
The rise of mobile banking
Fundtech has released Mobile ACCESSplus,
the first mobile platform designed specifically
for corporate electronic banking. The new
offering is an extension of Fundtech's
Services Platform, which is designed for
transaction banking.
Along with the launch of Mobile
ACCESSplus, Fundtech also announced the
introduction of three mobile modules: Global
CASHplus – Mobile, an advanced cash and
liquidity management system; Accountis EIP
– Mobile, an electronic invoice presentment
system; and Bacsactive-IP – Mobile, a system
used for UK Bacs
payments. The new
solution supports
the Microsoft mobile
operating system.
A major global bank
headquartered in the
UK is the first client of
Mobile ACCESSplus,
and plans to deploy
the Bacsactive-IP Mobile
service to its clients in the
near future.
9
marketwatch
the latest news in manufacturing and resources
Loews Hotels Business Services Center
has selected Trintech’s ReconNET and
AssureNET ASP software for financial
process compliance. The solutions are
hosted components of Trintech's Unity
platform, a suite of modular software
that enables companies to meet their
financial governance, risk management
and compliance goals.
Stratus Technologies has announced
support for Microsoft Hyper-V across
its entire Stratus ftServer line of faulttolerant platforms. The company also
now offers the Enterprise Edition of
Windows Server 2008 R2 on its most
affordable entry-level server, the ftServer
2600 system.
Eldon Insurance Services has selected
Landscape.NET, the complete end-toend insurance administration solution
from RDT, to augment its business
infrastructure and drive process
efficiency. The solution will support
administrative processes and business
operations from electronic receipt
of policy data through to full claims
handling and billing, on one technology
platform. Phased implementation will be
completed in 2011.
Aia Software has signed a worldwide
distribution agreement with insurance
technology provider SSP. As part of the
deal, the ITP Document Platform will be
added to the Insure suite of Web-based
components for clients in the general
insurance (property and casualty)
industry, and also to SSP’s other general
insurance solutions.
Microsoft has launched the beta of
Office365, a cloud productivity solution
that brings together Microsoft Office,
SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and
Lync Online. The new release replaces
Microsoft Business Productivity Online
Suite, Office Live Small Business and
Live@edu
www.onwindows.com
Staying one step ahead
Solutions provider for financial services
firms peterevans has launched a new
software-as-a-service offering for companies
to outsource their front and back offices.
SimplyStockbroking, one of the UK’s most
innovative execution-only services for private
investors, is the first client to use the service.
The outsourcing platform is based on
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 using the Microsoft
SPLA licensing model for ASP applications.
Clients are charged on a tiered transactional
basis, with charges decreasing as the level of
transactions rise.
peterevans initially developed and hosted
SimplyStockbroking’s online platform. This
has now been extended by the addition of
peterevans’ back-office system to provide a realtime, fully-integrated retail stockbroking system.
John
Douthwaite,
CEO
at
SimplyStockbroking said: “We have been
partnering with peterevans since inception,
and the team constantly brings our solutions
to new levels. Using xanite Wave to create
the UK’s first mobile application for real-time
stockbroking was a milestone in our product
offering, and outsourcing our back office is now
the logical extension of our partnership. These
new services, functionalities and features make
us stand out of the crowd and help us to be one
step ahead of the competition.”
Karen Cone, general manager, Worldwide
Financial Services, Microsoft, said: “peterevans’
outsourcing platform enables securities firms
such as SimplyStockbroking to accelerate
innovation, greatly increasing the speed and
effectiveness with which new products and
services are created, constantly improving the
connected customer experience.”
Windows Phone 7 out now
Windows Phone 7 is now available to buy in shops
across the globe, which is good news for mobile
banking service providers. According to Vocalink’s
The Voice of the Customer’ report, 42 per cent of
UK consumers with a bank account and half of
those who already make online payments would
find making a payment immediately via a mobile
phone extremely valuable.
Also, according to a study from
Aite Group and Fundtech, corporate mobile
banking is as yet an unexploited market.
Mobile banking technology has primarily been
offered via the consumer/retail channel but
results indicate that corporate mobile banking
presents a new, untapped opportunity for
banks. The report reveals about 50 per cent of
treasurers would be willing to pay
for value-added mobile services.
RBS, Albany unite for Faster Payments
Albany Software has become the first UK payment
software company to launch a payment service
with The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
The service allows the bank’s business
customers to choose between making electronic
payments either on the same day or the next day,
any day of the week, as well as a three-day payment
in the usual five-day business week.
The Albany ePAY product now works
alongside RBS and NatWest ‘Bankline’. It
enables business and corporate customers to
send bulk payment files from their back-office
accountancy and payroll systems not only
via the traditional Bacs three-day payment
cycle, but now also via the RBS Group Faster
Payments service.
This new service has been successfully piloted
with Mulholland Contracts, the civil engineering
and groundworks contractor. Kevin Breen, chief
financial officer, Mulholland Contracts, said:
“The particular benefits to us have been the
true flexibility of having access to the different
payment method cycles. In addition we expect
to see significant cost savings in relation to other
payment methods.”
Gavin Maclean, Faster Payments product
manager, RBS Group, said: “We believe this
will meet the particular payroll needs of those
employers and staffing agencies who have a
9%
There
h
increa as been a nin
se in c
onsum e per cent
of the
UK Fas er awarene
ter Pa
ss
Service
since la yments
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Sourc
e: Vo
Voice
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rep
ort
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is one of the largest banks in the UK
cross section of types of employees including
part-time, temporary and contract staff, as well
as those businesses needing to make numerous
faster payments each day.”
“With the sustained development of faster
payments, coupled with an intelligent software
solution like Albany ePAY, businesses can take
advantage of same-day payments that can facilitate
efficiency savings, improve cash flow management
and minimise additional charges associated
with late payments,” said Adrian Stafford-Jones,
managing director, Albany Software.
XSP and Decillion Group
deliver in Asia-Pacific
XSP, a global leader in automated end-to-end
corporate actions software, announced at
Sibos 2010 that Daiwa Capital Markets has
selected the XSP v5 solution to automate its
corporate actions processing via the Decillion
Group platform.
Decillion Group, a banking software
solutions provider and operator of the
largest SWIFT Service Bureau in the Asia-
Pacific region, will host the XSP v5 solution
in a software-as-a-service environment and
provide local support to Daiwa Capital
Markets. The client will implement the XSP
v5 Data Management & Scrubbing module
and the SWIFT ISO Messaging engine for
automated notifications, response capture
and elections processing.
The XSP v5 platform is built around a
service-oriented architecture using Microsoft
.NET components and Web Services for
global enterprise-wide processing. XSP also
announced that it has become a Microsoft
Gold Partner 2010/2011 in the Microsoft
Partner Network with a competency in
ISV/Software Solutions This is the fourth
consecutive year the company has achieved
Gold Certified Partner status.
11
marketwatch
the latest news in BANKING, CAPITAL MARKETS AND INSURANCE
XSP has announced that its flagship
product, the XSP v5 platform, has
achieved the SWIFTReady Corporate
Actions Label accreditation for 2010
in conjunction with Microsoft BizTalk
Accelerator for SWIFT, the SWIFTReady
financial enterprise application
integration product.
Fiserv focuses on the customer
Microsoft’s BizTalk Accelerator for
SWIFT product has been awarded the
SWIFTReady Financial EAI label for
2010, the product’s seventh straight
year of certification. BizTalk Accelerator
for SWIFT is included in the license
of BizTalk Server 2010 and is used by
global banks and corporate treasuries.
Trintech Group and Treasury
Technologies have unveiled the latest
release of their lifecycle management
software for financial institutions – LCM
Payments 2. The solution delivers a
browser-based account reconciliation
and positive pay capability, enabling
financial institutions to offer a more
diverse range of real-time capabilities
to their customers.
Business Information Systems
revealed that, in collaboration with
Microsoft and Musoni, it has deployed
the qPayIntegrator production platform
for a Musoni micro-financing venture.
Direct Debit announced
the availability of
Single Euro Payments
Area and SWIFT
modules for its
PayCentre paymentsmanagement
platform, which is
based on Microsoft. NET.
The system can now process multiple
payment types, including European and
international transactions, through a
single user interface.
Fiserv’s latest solution allows banks to drive sales in the branch
Fiserv has launched its latest branch solution,
Aperio Teller Seller, which brings extra
functionality to branch tellers to faciliate crossselling and better serve customers by providing
automated tools that optimise the teller function
within a financial institution. Aperio Teller Seller is
integrated with the Signature bank platform from
Fiserv, and is a customer interaction management
solution available to global financial institutions,
regardless of core provider.
“Financial institutions realise that the branch is
still the optimal place to take advantage of one-toone contact with customers, but need to shift from
a transaction-only mindset to one that is focused
on serving the end-customer and providing
Dates for your diary
17-18 November
Financial Forecasting & Planning Summit. London, UK
22-24 November 2010; Gulf Hotel, Bahrain
The World Islamic Banking Conference. Gulf Hotel, Bahrain
1 February 2011
FinovateEurope. London, UK
www.onwindows.com
them with the opportunity to purchase relevant
banking products. To accomplish this, the bank’s
employees must have access to customer-specific
knowledge,” said Tony Catalfano, division
president, Bank Solutions, Fiserv. “Aperio Teller
Seller arms financial institutions with tools so that
the front line knows the customer and can turn
each interaction into an opportunity to delight
that customer and increase revenue through
cross-sales.”
“We are excited to underpin Fiserv solutions
with the mission-critical yet cost-effective platform
of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008,”
said Karen Cone, general manager, Worldwide
Financial Services, Microsoft.
New risk management system
comes to the Co-operative
Hitachi Consulting has brought a new view of risk to the Co-operative
Hitachi Consulting UK has implemented a
new risk management and claims process and
handling system on behalf of the Co-operative
Group Risk and Insurance Department (GRID).
Known internally as, the GRID @Risk
Project, the new strategic platform, based on
Microsoft SharePoint, is designed to enable
the company to gain a true picture of risk,
identify higher risks faster through trend
pattern analysis and facilitate collaboration
for better decision making.
The initial phase of the project went live
at the end of August 2010 and included case
management functionality for the management
of incidents, accidents and claims, as well as
integration with the company’s learning
management system. Subsequent phases
around data protection, compliance and
business continuity are due to go live from the
beginning of November.
The future of risk and compliance
Enterprise risk management has
important but continues to present many
been identified as a leading trend for
obstacles, including lack of effective
the future of risk management and
tools for aggregation or analysis and the
compliance, according to a survey
unavailability of the data. Respondents
from the Professional Risk Managers’
expect to see more automation and
International Association and Microsoft.
self-serve analytical tools, allowing
The study also found that financial
greater time to be spent on strategic and
institutions place a strong emphasis on
proactive risk mitigation activities, rather
liquidity risk buffers and stress testing,
than on time-consuming tactical tasks
while non-financial firms focus more on
like data aggregation. They also identify
operational risk and cash flow at risk.
greater visualisation of risk as a means to
Obtaining risk data for management
increase cross-company collaboration in
and board reporting is also regarded as
risk management.
Report reveals
payments growth
Global payments volumes continued to grow
in 2009 despite economic pressure from the
financial crisis, according to findings from the
World Payments Report 2010 from Capgemini,
RBS and Efma. The report reveals that globally,
cards remain the preferred non-cash payment
instrument, accounting for more than 40 per
cent of payments in most markets and 58 per
cent globally.
It also revealed that in response to the crisis,
regulators are taking further steps that will
have significant consequences for key elements
of the payments industry. Implementing the
Basel III framework, in particular, will require
management attention and investment, which
along with more stringent liquidity requirements
will increase costs and could require a deeper
strategic repositioning for banks.
“While further progress has been made
with SEPA this year, the process of turning this
ambitious initiative into reality is still slow,” said
Bertrand Lavayssière, managing director, Global
Financial Services, Capgemini. “However, in light
of recent regulatory activity around liquidity,
many banks are focusing their attention on their
payments businesses with heightened interest.”
Together with post-crisis regulatory initiatives,
new technologies and added competition are
making the payments landscape increasingly
complex. Brian Stevenson, chief executive, RBS
Global Transaction Services, said: “Banks are
currently facing a variety of challenges from the
rapidly changing payments landscape. These
challenges also present significant
opportunities for banks that
are able to adjust their
strategies and move
nd
quickly to take
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13
marketwatch
the latest news in BANKING, CAPITAL MARKETS AND INSURANCE
A new perspective
Karen Cone explains how she intends to draw from her wealth of experience to
succeed in her new role as Microsoft’s Worldwide Financial Services Sector general manager
Karen Cone joined Microsoft this year as general
manager of the company’s Worldwide Financial
Services sector where she is responsible for
developing high impact, relevant sector strategies
and driving execution on a sustained basis.
Taking time out from her busy schedule, she
catches up with Rebecca Lambert to discuss
how she’s settling in and what she hopes to
accomplish with the company.
IBM, Gartner, MasterCard, TowerGroup and
now Microsoft. You’ve got an impressive track
record in technology and financial services.
Would you like to tell me a little about your
background and how it is helping in your new
role at Microsoft?
Thank you. I started my career at IBM, working
in Russia as part of IBM’s subsidiary start-up team
there. I subsequently moved to New York City
where I managed major financial services accounts
including Citi, and then onto China as product
manager for IBM China. When again returning
to the US, I led IBM’s software business practices
group and became engaged in evolving IBM
software licensing from capacity-based to usagebased models. This led to my joining Gartner
as an analyst responsible for software asset
management and ultimately assuming leadership
for a large portion of Gartner Research.
When the dot.com era caused Gartner to change
its go-to-market and channel strategy, I took on
another new challenge as general manager for
gartner.com. In 2003, I joined MasterCard to head
up the Research practice in MasterCard’s new
consulting arm, MasterCard Advisors. MasterCard
was preparing for its IPO at this time and had a
strategy to diversify its portfolio. This led to the
acquisition of TowerGroup, the leading IT research
and advisory services firm focused on financial
services. As a firm of industry analysts it was critical
www.onwindows.com
to maintain TowerGroup’s editorial independence.
MasterCard understood and respected this
requirement, kept TowerGroup as an independent
company and I took over as chief executive officer.
“Microsoft is fully vested
in game-changing
technologies. This, plus an
incredible ecosystem of
partners, makes Microsoft a
truly differentiated player ”
Now at Microsoft, I have a tremendous
opportunity to take advantage of my combined
experience. Just as TowerGroup covers banking,
capital markets and insurance, so does the
financial services industry sector at Microsoft.
I oversee marketing, solution development,
partner development and relations, and field
readiness and engagement. My team provides
thought leadership and translates industry trends
into opportunities that ensure the full extent of
Microsoft value propositions are realised globally.
Even my software licensing experience is likely to
come into play, as Microsoft products and services
move increasingly into the cloud, driving the need
to evolve traditional licensing and pricing models
into a new era.
What made you move to Microsoft?
We all have been witnesses to history, as the recent
financial crisis took down some of the strongest
financial institutions and changed the industry
landscape forever. It certainly was apparent from
our vantage point at TowerGroup that the financial
services industry is at an inflection point. The loss
of trust in the industry has resulted in a driving
need for transparency and risk management,
which, when combined with transformational
demographics and game changing technologies,
have put the customer in control. There is a
mandate for the industry to move faster than it
ever has before, and flexibility, agility and cost
management are now strategic imperatives.
Microsoft is fully vested in these game-changing
technologies. This, plus an incredible ecosystem
of partners, makes Microsoft a truly differentiated
player at a time when the industry needs such
capabilities. At this critical industry inflection
point, I decided it was time for me to become a
part of the solution – so here I am at Microsoft.
How do you see the company and the financial
services industry evolving in the next few years?
The pressure on CIOs and financial services’ lines
of business continues to require being able to do
more with less and provide solutions for business
problems and deliver differentiating innovation
to attract and retain customers while still driving
down costs. To meet customer demand, address
the need for transparency and risk management
and stay competitive against non-traditional
industry entrants, we will see increasing emphasis
on low cost computing in the enterprise and
redirection of the resulting savings to innovation.
Areas of focus will include: business intelligence
to create value from data and manage enterprise
risk; availability of intuitive, easy-to-use selfservice across multiple channels; and providing
top quality connected or in-person experiences.
Whether customers or employees, end users will
Karen Cone with the Misys and Microsoft team. From left to right:
Dermot Briody, Regional Sales Director Europe, Misys
Karen Cone, General Manager Financial Services, Microsoft
Peter Scott, Retail Solutions Director BankFusion, Misys
Joseph Pagano, Managing Director Banking & Capital Markets, Microsoft
Emma Cloney, Global Alliance Manager, Microsoft
be unaware of how these experiences are being
delivered. They will not know or care whether
services are sourced from on-premise data
centres or through the agility of the cloud. Users
will expect seamless availability on any device,
anywhere, at any time. Together with partners,
Microsoft is already making this happen.
What technology in particular do you feel is going
to revolutionise the way financial institutions
operate and connect with customers?
It is actually not one technology, but the
confluence of multiple technologies and people
that is triggering such a revolution. Game-changing
technologies include data management tools for
business intelligence, social networking platforms
and communities, open standards, high availability
and the cloud. Additionally, we are seeing the rise
of a new generation of consumers and employees
who interact with technology as an extension of
themselves, where the use of technology is in their
DNA. It is this combination that is revolutionising
the way financial institutions operate and connect
with customers.
That said, if I were to select one predominant
factor, it would the social networking phenomenon
that is changing the way the financial services
industry thinks about marketing, customer loyalty
and brand image. Consumers expect big brands
to be performing online and understanding their
needs. Financial services institutions know they need
to create compelling user experiences to grow. Every
month, Microsoft media properties and related tools
reach 730 million unique users in 42 markets and
21 languages, this is why so many institutions are
partnering with Microsoft to find how to attract new
business, connect with and retain customers, and
tap monetisation opportunities.
Can you tell me about any exciting projects
Microsoft has on the go at the moment with
partners and end users?
Needless to say there are very exciting projects
in progress. At Sibos we announced a strategic
alliance with Misys to deliver the company’s
banking and capital markets applications via the
Windows Azure cloud platform. This brings a
unique value proposition to the sector, allowing
banks to leverage and extend their existing
IT investments to take advantage of cloud
computing. Through partnerships with industry
leaders such as Misys, we are focused on delivering
both on-premise and cloud-based solutions that
our customers need to gain the benefits of cloud
services on their own terms.
Recently, AXA Seguros decided to implement
the Windows Azure platform in a pilot deployment
for a new insurance claims management system.
15
marketwatch
the latest news in BANKING, CAPITAL MARKETS AND INSURANCE
“Microsoft has so much to
offer at a time when the
financial services industry
must make a paradigm
shift to meet the needs of
a dramatically changing
landscape”
Working with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
EMLink, the insurance company was able to
develop its new claims management system
in less than two months. This kind of short
development cycle is becoming increasingly
critical to be competitive in the industry.
I also talk about the importance of online
banking in the changing financial services
industry landscape. This past July the
Australian bank Westpac selected online
consumer, business banking and corporate
services from Fiserv, one of Microsoft’s
strategic alliance partners, to power its online
transformation programme. For phase one,
Westpac and Fiserv have committed to
using SQL Server to significantly enhance
customer reporting capabilities, a feature
that will be rolled out to all future customers.
Subsequent phases will leverage Office
Communications Server as well as FAST
Enterprise Search across the public and
secure banking sites.
Just in September, Microsoft announced that
www.onwindows.com
Skandinavisk Data Center has moved its core
banking system from its mainframe platform
to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Windows
Server 2008 (the full story can be read on
page 47). It is estimated that SDC will reduce
operational costs for its core banking system by
30 per cent – giving it a competitive edge and
eliminating additional internal expense.
Further demonstrating the power and scale
of the Microsoft platform for the largest banking
operations, also in September Microsoft
and Temenos announced a successful highperformance benchmark that measured the
scalability of TEMENOS T24 on Microsoft SQL
Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2
Datacenter. This benchmark was performed as
part of the strategic alliance between Temenos
and Microsoft announced last year, the aim
of which is to deliver an optimised T24 core
banking solution on Microsoft technology and
therefore greatly increase operational efficiency
at large-scale banks. The testing environment,
created to reflect real-world retail banking
activity volumes, was made up of 25 million
accounts and 15 million customers across
2,000 branches. At peak performance the
system processed more than 3,400 transactions
per second in online testing and averaged over
5,200 interest accrual and capitalisations per
second during close-of-business processing.
These performance figures make T24 and
Microsoft technologies an increasingly
compelling proposition for even the largest
banks across the globe.
Turning the focus back on you, what do you
hope to bring to the table in your new role?
Microsoft has so much to offer at a time
when the financial services industry must
make a paradigm shift to meet the needs of a
dramatically changing landscape.
Together with a great team and the valuable
resources of Microsoft and our partners, I look
to empower the success of our customers by
connecting future vision with today’s reality. It’s
the start of a great, long-term partnership.
Using Microsoft SharePoint?
You already have a great document
management solution and now efficient
customer correspondence is just one
step away.
Our Correspondence System uses an uncomplicated
paragraph-driven approach to help business users
quickly and consistently build invoices, letters, contracts, mailings and other business correspondence
directly from MS SharePoint and offers:
• Improved Productivity
• Greater Personalisation
• Advanced Content Management
• Reduced Time to Market
• Communications Compliance
Use SharePoint workflows, document storage and
the new Office Web Apps with documents generated
by ITP.
To find out more or to arrange a demonstration
please contact:
[email protected] or call 01702 335 887
viewpoint
Jojy Matthews
data quality
VP, Capgemini Financial Services
Data quality
where it counts
What’s the best strategy for financial firms looking to operationalise an
integrated data quality program? Jojy Matthews takes a look
Data quality is an essential and fundamental
building block of an enterprise information
management program. Since quality
information is critical to making informed
and accurate business decisions, executive
leadership is often the largest proponent
and sponsor of data quality programs. In
the financial services sector, data quality is
mandated by regulations such as Solvency II
in insurance and Basel II/III in banking and
thus a crucial part of running the business.
While data quality has been important for
many years, operationalising it has been a
consistent challenge. After many failed initiatives,
financial institutions are looking for proven, realworld solutions to successfully implement data
governance and data quality programs.
Capgemini has helped banks, insurers and
capital markets firms execute programs for Basel II,
enterprise risk management, analytics and Solvency
II. From our experience we developed a methodical
approach to operationalising data quality, which
has proven to be repeatable and successful. A
data quality program is more than leveraging data
profiling tools to scan the technical aspects of data.
Capgemini’s approach focuses on solving the data
quality problem holistically and practically to meet
regulatory requirements on a sustainable basis,
looking at factors such as organisational culture,
processes, tools and infrastructure.
Financial institutions must start any data quality
initiative with the right strategy, vision, approach,
objectives and, most importantly, execution focus.
Here are ten things you should be doing:
1. Remember it’s a program, not a project.
Data quality must be an ongoing, sustainable,
and business-led effort that brings together
business, IT, finance and risk.
www.onwindows.com
2. Rationalise information. Consistent semantics
and data usage rules across the organisation are
key requirements for a successful program and
can be achieved using tools like SQL Server to
build a business or data dictionary.
3. Align business and information technology.
Business and IT must be on the same page
regarding the company’s information enterprise.
4. Support standardisation and repeatability.
Processes, methodologies and tools must
be implemented across all geographies and
departments in a standardised manner. We
have used SharePoint to collaboratively build,
maintain and share standards across globally
diverse teams.
5. Enforce and sustain the program. Since the
program must consistently deliver trustworthy
business information for decision making,
enforceability and sustainability is key to success.
6. Optimise time to market. Data quality
approaches must deliver results consistently and
with business benefit within required timelines.
7. Focus on business and value with active
participation from business owners. The
program is a partnership between business and
IT to drive business value.
8. Encourage a profit centre versus cost centre
model. Investments in an integrated data quality
program buys sustainable business value while
a point solution only addresses a specific
regulatory reporting requirement like Basel II.
9. Think strategically; execute tactically. To
a financial services institution, information is
a valuable asset. A data quality program helps
companies address current tactical requirements
for regulatory compliance while at the same
time building an information management
foundation that is a strategic asset.
“From our experience we
developed a methodical
approach to operationalising
data quality, which has
proven to be repeatable
and successful”
10. Use the right tools. Data quality programs
can become buried in detail. Best-of-breed
execution should include tools to monitor
workflow, accountability and governance. We’ve
used SharePoint and Microsoft Office to help our
clients keep on track.
Jojy Matthews is vice president of Capgemini
Financial Services
viewpoint
storage
Steve Hall
European Product Development Manager – Flash, Kingston Technology
Upgrade your
return on investment
Steve Hall explains why by upgrading to the latest SSD drives today,
financial institutions can save money in the long term
In recent years, there have been significant
investments made in centralised server storage
technologies, such as virtualisation and the
cloud, to realise a new source of efficiencies.
However, it should not be forgotten that it is
desktop and notebook performance that is
the key that unlocks the benefits of these new
infrastructures.
Financial organisations are looking for
ways to enable their users to take advantage
of the increased performance and efficiency
of centralised servers, while maximising their
return on investment (ROI).
According to its May 2010 report Personal
Computer Quarterly Statistics Worldwide By
Region: Final Database, independent IT analyst
firm Gartner estimates that 70 million desktops
and 50 million laptops need upgrading or
replacing in the next 12-18 months. The
traditional solution to ageing client systems
is to simply replace them after 2-4 years. The
assumed benefit is that the new systems will
offer significant performance increases, will
significantly reduce failures and will of course
be under warranty, which reduces unforeseen
costs. However, this is not necessarily the best
option; budgets are under pressure, there are
additional implementation costs and the new
systems may not offer justified performance
increases. As an alternative, it is far better to look
for an upgrade solution that makes your assets
go further – delivering performance, endurance
and demonstrable ROI.
Solid state drive (SSD) ranges like SSDNow
from Kingston Technology present compelling
reasons for upgrading existing systems.
The first is the performance increase that
SSDs offer to both existing and new systems.
In external tests, SSDNow drives can offer up
to 50 per cent performance increase on existing
notebooks alone, with a cost of just US$3.38
per percentage of increased performance. These
same tests also demonstrated that new systems
benefited with the use of an SSDNow drive with
a performance increase of 27 per cent. This far
outweighs the performance increase offered by
new systems, which in most cases will still use
outdated traditional hard disk drives (HDD).
The second is endurance, which is a key factor
for IT departments that have to support the client
systems. Not only are SSDs up to four times
more shock resistant than HDDs, they have no
moving parts to fail or degrade. As highlighted
by an Intel TCO study last year, the failure rate of
SSDs in notebooks is just 0.5 per cent compared
to 4.9 per cent for HDDs. SSDNow drives can
extend existing system lifecycles, boost user
productivity and significantly reduce downtime
and maintenance costs.
Lastly, for organisations in financial markets,
the two most important factors when deciding
system upgrades and replacements are the lowest
possible downtime, combined with the highest
efficiency to compete in highly competitive
markets. The cost of adopting new technology
that actually delivers these requirements is often
outweighed by the benefits. If servers or systems
cannot be relied upon, then an alternative must
be sought in order for your organisation to
maximise its potential.
To help organisations understand the
potential ROI that SSDNow drives can offer,
a new ROI calculator has been created by
Kingston. This calculator takes into account
the costs associated with the performance,
reliability and maintenance of HDD and SSD-
“Financial organisations
are looking for ways to
enable their users to take
advantage of the increased
performance and efficiency
of centralised servers, while
maximising their return on
investment ”
based systems. Using this data, the calculator
demonstrates the ROI in terms of both
productivity and financial benefits and how long
this will take to realise. Visit our Web site (www.
kingston.com/ssdlearnmore) to try it out.
Steve Hall is European product development
manager – Flash at Kingston Technology
19
viewpoint
data management
Katharine Wolstenholme
Head of Business Analysis, Moore Stephens Consulting
Is your data an
asset or a liability?
Simply capturing and storing data is insufficient. Like other corporate assets, data and
information quality needs to be effectively managed, says Katharine Wolstenholme
Data can be an important asset on which
companies depend in order to drive their
business forward, whether that data is used
for contacts for future sales initiatives or
historical analysis of trends/losses. Despite
this, many organisations don’t currently
have measures in place to ensure they are
using data to their advantage, while others
don’t even know if the data they are using is
accurate. In a survey undertaken by Gartner
in 2009, for example, participants estimated
that on average they are losing more than
US$8 million annually because of data
quality issues.
Data management presents a significant
challenge to most companies. During Basel
II implementations, the banking industry
experienced data quality issues on a large
scale. The effort required to address these
issues was grossly underestimated, which
meant a higher level of capital was required to
compensate for the uncertainty arising from
unresolved data issues.
The increasing cost of data management
together with penalties imposed when breaches
to regulatory compliance occur have fuelled the
demand for better management and controls,
and moved the issue of data high up on the
corporate agenda.
Companies are struggling with government
mandates, business demands and a
proliferation of regulations and industry
standards, including Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel
II and Solvency II, to ensure critical data is
protected, managed and controlled in order
to provide the assurances required. With
increasing data sources, different types of
data and sheer volumes, it is very easy to lose
www.onwindows.com
control. Today, there is more focus than ever
on data transparency and accountability, and
companies need to avoid using information or
data which has been compromised.
The insurance industry, in particular, has
traditionally managed data in silos. Each of the
various internal departments – underwriting,
claims, actuarial, finance, risk and investment –
require data, but very few insurance firms have
central functions responsible for the acquisition
and quality of it. Much of the data is managed
or sourced from spreadsheets, leading to a
proliferation of data stores increasing the risk
of inconsistent reporting and decision making.
Under Solvency II, insurers are required to
focus on managing all the risks they face, and
to document and disclose those risks and how
they are managed in such a way that the related
capital requirements ensuring the insurer’s
financial soundness is efficient and transparent.
Accurate and complete data is at the core of
the risk management, capital modelling and
disclosure requirements of the Solvency II
regime; without it all the other elements of the
regime fail.
The process for the management and control
of data has evolved under the umbrella of
data governance. This regime extends to all
data, be it financial, non-financial, maintained
electronically or within manual spreadsheets.
A data warehouse solution can provide the
central, controlled single version of the truth,
but only if it is supported by a strong data
governance environment together with the
business processes that ensure the data quality
is present.
The establishment of a strong data
governance policy together with a robust data
“The establishment of a
strong data governance
policy together with a
robust data warehouse will
help to ensure the business
can withstand regulatory
scrutiny”
warehouse will help to ensure the business can
withstand regulatory scrutiny, while at the same
time allowing it to fully exploit the data asset.
It may be a daunting prospect, but data quality
processes and continued data management
provide the necessary infrastructure to
transform data from an out-of-control liability
into a reliable and valued corporate asset.
Katharine Wolstenholme is a partner of Moore
Stephens and heads up the business analysis
function within Moore Stephens Consulting
viewpoint
financial advice
Vincent van den Bogert
CFP, Vice President, Figlo Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Making financial
planning personal
Advisors must be able to deliver transparent and understandable
advice in order to win customers over and regain their trust, says Vincent van den Bogert
The economic downturn has had a dramatic
impact on society in Germany, as in the rest
of the world. During this and now in the
aftermath, many customers have become
disillusioned by the advice they receive
regarding how to manage their personal
finances. In general, trust in advisors has
diminished. On a positive note though,
because of what has happened, regulations
have been tightened and the rules of
compliance revised. Therefore, in order to
comply with new regulatory frameworks and
regain customer trust, it is now obligatory
for advisors to deliver transparent and
understandable advice.
Because people all deal with their money
in different ways and have their own financial
needs, selling a specific financial product to
a similar group of people is not acceptable
anymore. To start regaining consumer trust,
today’s financial advisors must be aware that
the advice they give not only has to be objective
but tailored to each individual customer. Even
this can only go so far. When it comes to
advising on more complex financial aspects
of an individual’s financial future like savings,
insurance, retirement or wealth management,
the information provided needs to be as clear
as possible. Certainly, the financial industry did
not make it any easier for its clients by creating
a financial language that cannot be understood
universally. Many customers looking at their life
insurance policies or fund value statements, for
example, struggle to comprehend all the finer
points. Financial information must therefore be
communicated in a less complicated manner if
customer trust is to truly be regained.
In Germany, information transparency
doesn’t just come down to the financial advisors;
the customer must also be able to clearly provide
the required financial information to ensure the
best advisory process. Only then can advice be
tailored to the best interests of the customer
and reduce the chances of them being sold
inappropriate financial products. People must be
empowered to manage their own finances and
they need to be taken seriously. It is essential
to offer the right tools for comprehensive
information, insight, communication and advice.
People are more willing to buy financial products
if they understand why they need them and how
the product fits their circumstances.
The financial industry is all about the
relationship between human behaviour and
money. Accessibility to information allows the
customer to understand an issue and go about
solving it. For financial institutions and advisors
to serve their customers effectively in this new
environment, they need to remove the barriers
that in the past have prevented them from being
more accessible to the customer. Consumers
expect integrated solutions that focus on
helping them reach their current and future
financial goals by providing an exceptional level
of personalised service and financial advice.
These solutions must also be able to adapt
quickly to changing client circumstances, market
conditions or tax laws.
Nowadays, customers expect a strong
commitment to integrity and transparency from
their financial advisor. A simple solution to
achieving this is to embrace integrated intuitive
software, which makes it relatively easy for an
advisor, as well as a financial institution, to
bridge the information gap and create a fun and
learning environment for the customer. Personal
“To start regaining consumer
trust, today’s financial
advisors must be aware that
the advice they give not
only has to be objective
but tailored to each
individual customer”
finance management is a people business; it’s
about building relationships and building trust.
Figlo software takes financial insight to a
whole new dimension and makes financial
planning personal using the latest Microsoft
technologies to provide out-of-the-box solutions
for advisors to use. Innovations such as the
Internet and mobile phones have revolutionised
the availability of information on a global scale.
By embracing this, the financial industry can
speed up the much-needed changes customers
and compliance bodies are calling for. We can’t
wait for the new Windows Phone 7 devices and
Windows 7 slates; just imagine what they can do
to help simplify access to financial data.
Vincent van den Bogert is a certified financial
planner and is vice president of Figlo Germany,
Austria and Switzerland
21
COVER STORY
Eurobank Tekfen
“Competition is rife
here in Turkey, and so
to succeed we need
to expand quickly”
Soner Ersoy
Eurobank Tekfen
www.onwindows.com
Eurobank Tekfen is a universal bank in Turkey,
and a joint venture of Eurobank EFG and Tekfen
Group. Established in 1956, Tekfen Group
operates in four main sectors in eleven countries
with 45 companies, seven subsidiaries, and more
than 11,000 employees.
Eurobank EFG is an international banking
group with presence across 40 countries including
Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Turkey, Poland,
Ukraine, United Kingdom, Luxembourg and
Cyprus, employing more than 23,000 people and
offering its products and services both through its
network of over 1,600 branches and points of sale,
and through alternative distribution channels.
Over the past ten years Eurobank Tekfen has
developed and grown at a phenomenal rate, starting
with just a single branch in 2001 and expanding
to its current network of 53 branches in just six
years. But this is just the start. The company wants
to accelerate its growth strategy further, aiming to
focus on corporate, small business and affluent
segments. In addition to this it wants to expand
into new cities, building on its existing personal
and corporate banking services by strengthening its
online presence and ATM capability, and offering
additional channels including a call centre.
Soner Ersoy, the company’s CIO, says that
these ambitious aspirations are not unrealistic.
“Competition is rife here in Turkey, and so to
succeed we need to expand quickly,” he explains.
However, until recently, there was one
thing inhibiting the company’s growth: its IT
All systems GO!
Turkish financial institution Eurobank
Tekfen has recently gone live with
a new core offering from Microsoft
partner Intertech, taking a big bang
approach that saw it switch over to the
new solution in just a weekend. Lindsay
James reports
23
cover story
Eurobank Tekfen
infrastructure. “Technology was undoubtedly
holding us back,” says Ersoy. “We were using
a local off-the-shelf solution called Quantis,
running on the Unix platform, and this was
very limited in its functionality and certainly
not scalable. Creating the multi-channel,
multi-branch operation that we wanted was
not achievable on this system.”
With this in mind, Ersoy and his
colleagues set to work creating a map of
Eurobank Tekfen’s current and new business
areas, building a comprehensive list of
requirements for a new system. “With over
1,600 requirements on the list, we felt sure
that no solution would be a complete match,”
explains Ersoy. “But then Intertech came
along with its inter-Next product.”
Intertech impressed Eurobank Tekfen
with its Web-based offering, which met all
of the criteria. Microsoft technologies are
fundamental to the solution, which was
developed using .NET to establish a three-
www.onwindows.com
layer service-oriented architecture (SOA)
infrastructure. “In addition to this, SOA
infrastructure uses SQL Server in its database
layer and uses Windows servers in its
application and user interface layers,” explains
Murat Celik, Intertech’s general manager.
The use of these technologies has allowed
Intertech to create a scalable banking platform
with integrated customer relationship
management, business process management
(BPM), distribution channel management
and business intelligence tools. The interNext solution links and automates business
processes to guarantee high performance
for companies like Eurobank Tekfen. “interNext adds value to financial institutions by
improving efficiency and bringing agility
of time to market,” explains Celik. “When
resources, processes and technological
elements are working together in harmony,
staff can work much more productively and
can provide an exceptional level of service.”
With the inter-Next solution chosen,
preparation for the implementation
commenced. Over a period of nine months
the solution was put in place at the head
office and across the network of branches,
and a comprehensive training programme
was carried out. “Getting user buy-in was a top
concern, so we invested significant resources
in training,” says Ersoy. “Using a combination
of classroom-based teaching and practical
sessions, we trained up all 800 users before
the solution went live.”
Somewhat controversially, Eurobank
Tekfen chose a big bang approach for the
switchover, which took place over a single
weekend. “We didn’t have any qualms about
doing this,” says Ersoy. “We knew we were
taking a risk, but we were extremely prepared
for the changeover and it seemed the best
approach for us. On Friday we shut down
the old systems, then on Monday, having
migrated all our data, we re-opened the
branches and the head office. There were no
major problems.”
Ersoy says that taking a big bang approach
is extremely effective, as long as enough
planning has been done beforehand. “The
alternative involves having to keep two
systems running in parallel. This can be costly,
and is a drain on resources and operations. A
big bang approach is more cost effective and
allows the bank to focus on the new system.”
Since the switchover, the benefits have been
significant. inter-Next has replaced a number
of manual processes at the bank, which has
generated new efficiencies for employees. “In
a process-rich industry like banking, BPM
plays an extremely critical role in increasing
efficiency, reducing costs and improving
staff productivity,” explains Ersoy. “Thus
BPM is implemented throughout the interNext solution, allowing Eurobank Tekfen to
streamline and accelerate core processes.”
In addition, the bank has opened up a
call centre, providing additional support to
customers, and creating more up-sell and
cross-sell opportunities for staff. “We’ve
Employees at Eurobank Tekfen are now able to offer a higher level of service to customers
“When resources,
processes and
technological elements
are working together in
harmony, staff can work
much more productively
and can provide an
exceptional level of service”
Murat Celik
Intertech
definitely noticed that our employees are a
lot happier now,” says Ersoy. “Core banking
services, distribution channel management,
customer relationship management,
business process management and business
intelligence are all seamlessly integrated in a
single, customisable dashboard.”
Not only this, but with greater agility,
effective decision support and a low total
cost of ownership Eurobank Tekfen has the
ability to preserve and enhance brand value
and differentiate itself from its competitors.
“Eurobank Tekfen now has an integrated
banking environment, allowing it to
perform, measure, analyse and restructure
its services and act on new business
possibilities rapidly,” says Celik.
On the customer side, new credit card and
POS functionalities have been launched and
the Internet banking and ATM capabilities
have been upgraded. “Our previous ATM
functionality was limited to balance enquiries
and money withdrawal, but now we have
more options,” Ersoy explains. “Similarly, our
online channel is much more user-friendly
and has many more features, making for a
compelling customer experience.”
Ersoy says that Eurobank Tekfen is now
in a much better position to compete with
other Turkish banks. “We are starting to
open new branches, and we can continue to
do this without any concerns,” he explains.
“Not only this, but we can offer a much
higher level of service to our customers.
This provides a springboard for a very
successful future.”
25
feature
Online banking
www.onwindows.com
No limits
Lindsay James finds out how, with the right technology, banks can
leverage the capabilities of the Web to provide an online experience
that is rich, immersive and insightful
Today’s customers conduct much of their lives
online. From shopping to socialising, they
think nothing of using the Web for all manner
of things, and banking is no exception. In fact,
because today’s customers are so well versed
with what the Web can do for them, they have
come to expect more from their online banking
experience, demanding better service, greater
insight and having no qualms in voicing their
opinions if something isn’t right.
This has spurred a shift in the client-bank
relationship. “Comparison tools allow Internet
consumers to hone in on the exact product they
want, and this is a radical change,” explains PierreYves Glever, head of Capgemini’s multi-channel
practice. “In the past, a branch teller would promote
products to the consumer. Today, the consumer
leads the interaction and is a much more mature
and independent buyer. Consumers are more
aware of their buying choices and look for added
value. The consumer also has complete control
over the time, place and channel of the interaction:
online at home
in the middle of the night, versus visiting a branch
during lunchtime.”
Marcelo Marquez, Microsoft’s industry solution
manager for Worldwide Banking, agrees, adding
that banks need to up their game in order to
succeed. “Financial institutions need to offer an
online experience that is rich and immersive,” he
says. “In the past, banks have used the Web simply
as an electronic catalogue, but today they need to
go far beyond this – they need to provide insight
and tools that allow them to actively engage with
customers.”
Undeniably, financial institutions need to offer
new services online that allow them to differentiate
themselves from the competition. “If you look at
many of the online offerings today, they are very
similar,” says Hisham Al-Bashrawi, technology
evaluator at Microsoft partner Naizak. “This isn’t
good enough. Banks need to offer advanced
features, more search options, reporting and
generally provide a more personal experience.
To do this they need to recognise the value of the
online channel and start investing in it.”
A recent report by the Efma Banking Advisory
Council, which is made up
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Online banking
“In the past, banks have
used the Web simply as an
electronic catalogue, but
today they need to go far
beyond this – they need to
provide insight and tools
that allow them to actively
engage with customers”
Marcelo Marquez
Microsoft
of senior level representatives from major banks
across Europe in association with Microsoft,
recognises that investment in the online
channel over recent years has been relatively
low compared to other sectors – even when it is
effectively the banks’ largest branch. However,
council members reported that they are now
increasing investment in the online buying
experience in a drive to accelerate sales and at
the same time reduce the costs involved.
Most council members feel strongly that
banks need to carry out more sales online.
While some have been more successful with the
online channel than others, there was general
agreement that the online buying process needs
to become less complex and easier to use.
Products that can usually be sold successfully
online include deposit accounts, credit accounts,
mutual funds and stocks. In fact, overall, council
members felt that potentially anything can be
sold online – but redesigning the processes to
make this possible is very costly. Some products
can easily be pulled, whereas others are designed
to be pushed.
Despite the general recognition that there is
a great future for online sales, at the moment
things are moving slowly. The reasons for this
slow uptake are mainly to do with legacy IT
systems. “Many banks are stuck with complex
organisational barriers, which are preventing
them from achieving real success online,”
explains Marquez. “Most banks develop their
online facilities by putting an extra layer on top
of their existing processes. As more layers get
added with new services and offerings, then the
operation becomes even more complicated.”
Glever agrees. “This is a strategic challenge,”
he explains. “Over time, channels have been
added to the legacy infrastructure and systems
without being fully integrated into a global
strategic and marketing vision of the distribution
layers. Channels are added, but it is not a multichannel strategy as much as a many-channel
addition.”
Indeed, incumbent systems have a lot
to answer for. Operational errors, lapses in
internal controls, manual handoffs, continual
workarounds and reprocessing efforts amount
to billions of dollars in wasted performance for
the banking industry. These hefty operational
expenses add to an already high cost of
maintaining fragmented legacy IT systems.
Case study: Personal money management
Nedbank is one of South Africa’s four major banks. Known as the
region’s green bank, it was the first African bank to adopt the Equator
Principles and also the first financial services organisation within Africa
to achieve carbon neutrality.
Seeking to assist its clients online during the global economic
spending habits and to ultimately improve their financial wellbeing.
In fact, according to a press release issued by the bank: “PMM is like
having a personal financial manager at your service, 24/7.”
Other than the obvious assistance PMM offers to Nedbank’s clients, it
also aligns with the bank’s sustainability objectives. Clients are now more
downturn, Nedbank rolled out Personal Money Manager (PMM) from
likely to opt out of traditional paper-based statements, as PMM adds an
Microsoft partner StrategyOnline to its entire Internet banking client base.
unprecedented layer of usefulness to the electronic statement medium.
PMM aims to revolutionise the way in which Nedbank provides statement
Since Nedbank released the solution to its customers in early 2009,
data to its clients, by integrating seamlessly with Internet banking, and
the software uptake has been phenomenal. Not only this, but there have
by bringing statement analysis, budgeting and financial planning within
been zero reported bugs or issues to date. This is testimony not only
reach for the average client, from the comfort of their homes.
to the quality of the code, but also to the development tools and the
By evaluating historical statement data, PMM can automatically
generate a useful, meaningful, accurate budget for each client. It can
Microsoft technologies and platforms on which the system runs.
Because of this success, the software is being expanded to support the
provide this data instantaneously, without forcing users to spend large
full range of banking products. Credit Card statements will be supported
amounts of time setting up the software or classifying transactions.
by the end of 2010, and a Small Business Edition of PMM will be released
Along with this, PMM also provides a number of useful, interactive
early 2011, which will include additional, business-specific functionality.
graphs and reports, which empower clients to take charge of their
www.onwindows.com
And this isn’t the only barrier to online success.
According to the Efma report, regulations
continue to act as a constraint that can affect the
viability of the online sales of financial services
products. The report highlights that one of
the largest limitations comes from regulators’
demands for a customer’s physical signature. In
Scandinavia, the use of identification cards has
made it far easier to sell deposit products online
than it has in other areas. In contrast, banks
in Greece have reported some difficulties in
making progress in online sales due to stringent
regulations, and banks in Portugal face new
regulations almost every month.
There are also restrictions on what products
can be sold online. “For products that can’t
be sold easily over the Internet, banks still
need to use branches, call centres and branch
advisors to complete the sale,” says Marquez.
“For instance, in some countries, selling a
mortgage online is almost impossible due to
legal constraints and the amount of paperwork
involved. However, in other countries it is
easier – even if the full sales process can’t be
completed online, mortgages can be promoted
and initial application stages executed online,
Case study: Strict security standards
Bank of Bogota International is located in some of the most
benefits with higher
important financial centres of America – Miami, New York, Panama,
security being one of the
and Nassau – providing consumer banking, corporate banking and
most significant. A special
private banking services.
module of applications
In a world context where transactions are frequently performed
related to the strengthening
through electronic media, the bank needed to update its banking
of security performs a more
services by incorporating a dynamic platform while at the same
thorough check of the
time adding a robust mechanism to ensure high security when
bank´s online user identity
performing transactions over the Internet. For those purposes, Bank
with the aid of different
of Bogota International chose Infocorp’s e-channel suite IC-Banking,
factors. This gives the bank
which is already used by many industry-leading financial institutions
compliance with strict US
including Santander Bank.
banking regulations.
“Infocorp fits the profile of the technology supplier that we were
Further benefits arise from the solution’s adaptability and scalability.
looking for,” says Javier Ramírez, Bank of Bogota’s CIO, located
The bank now also has the capacity to adapt the solution to meet
in Miami, USA. “We worked with synergy and obtained a quality
future business needs, such as integration with mobile applications,
product that exceeded what was initially required.”
RIA capabilities, a Silverlight module or analyser capacities for back-
Since the implementation, the bank has seen numerous business
office work of the bank executives.
29
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Online banking
before being completed in person.”
So what can be done to get over these barriers?
A move to a services-oriented architecture is a
good start, allowing banks with multiple silos of
information to integrate disparate channels and
create an agile infrastructure where back-end
systems can be exposed to new services and
channels as they emerge or evolve.
This may sound daunting but, with
Microsoft’s investment in the cloud, the
way financial services businesses consume
technology is changing. “Banks are looking to
the cloud, both public and private, to help them
leverage existing IT investments, reduce costs
and create new business opportunities,” explains
Marquez. “In the financial services industry the
cloud provides a platform to eliminate the need
for large-scale capital investments and drive
innovative new products and services. Most
modern applications have been created on a
services-oriented architecture to allow them to
take advantage of and be available in the cloud.”
By throwing an effective customer
relationship management (CRM) application
into the mix and backed by strong business
intelligence, banks can better serve the
customer and support growth opportunities.
“Microsoft’s CRM solutions can be fully
integrated across all channels, making it easy
to translate customer insight and centralised
marketing campaigns into successful
customer interactions whichever channel they
choose,” explains Marquez.
With this kind of infrastructure, banks have
the foundation for a solid multi-channel strategy,
allowing them to focus more specifically on
the online experience. Internet applications
such as Microsoft Silverlight allow financial
institutions to create a richer, more immersive
user interface. “We’re moving into an area where
the user interface is of utmost importance,” says
Marquez. “By using the Silverlight development
platform, banks can create engaging, interactive
applications online.”
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is also
allowing financial institutions to differentiate
themselves online, giving them out-of-the-box
capabilities for Web content management and
search. “Technologies like SharePoint can be
used to deliver a more collaborative experience
between the customer, the branch advisor and
the experts within the bank,” says Glever. “The
integration of search technologies like FAST
canalso be used to efficiently deliver a more
accurate and real-time 360-degree view of the
customer and drive better overall CRM.”
Not only this, but the latest SharePoint release,
SharePoint 2010, also allows integration with
social media tools, allowing financial institutions
to better connect with customers. “If banks
are truly going to try to understand how their
customers are living their lives, then they most
definitely need to leverage the power of social
networking,” says Marquez. “As we’re seeing in
other industries, these tools allow businesses to
enhance and protect customer loyalty in ways
Making a statement online
Steve Shaw, Director, Strategic Marketing, Electronic Banking Services, Fiserv
For most financial institutions, the online channel is now the
Web 2.0 concepts can help financial institutions create a sense of
cornerstone of their relationship with their customers, and delivering a
community while making daily financial activities easier for consumers.
positive experience has taken on the utmost importance. With online
For example, once customers are ready to secure a loan, you can make
interactions now spilling over into mobile devices and even tablets,
it easy by pre-populating online loan applications, providing instant
usability and consistency across each channel is essential. Financial
decisioning, and following up to ensure they’re satisfied with the
institutions have to focus on delivering more robust services and deeper
experience. Your financial institution can also make financial information
functionality, while at the same time creating a personalised experience.
actionable by providing members with financial views that categorise
Taking full advantage of the latest technologies will enable financial
institutions to deliver services that are functional, personal and user
friendly. Offering integrated and intuitive online banking, bill payment
their spending, alert them to potential overdrafts and simplify tax
preparation.
Using Web 2.0 development approaches can enable your financial
and personal financial management tools enables customers to
institution to provide customers with the tools to create their own
conduct everyday transactions and get a better picture of their financial
online experience – for example customising the user interface through
situation. New services such as mobile banking and payments enhance
widgets. These technologies also allow you to instantly show information
convenience and provide value to customers, giving them another
to your users when it matters to them. This ensures consumers will come
reason to come to the bank site.
back again and do more with you because you made things easy and
Leveraging Web 2.0 technologies and specific tools such as
rich Internet applications, like Microsoft Silverlight, allows financial
anticipated their needs.
Investment in Web 2.0 technologies will go a long way towards
institutions to deliver a personal, customised user experience across the
helping financial institutions distinguish themselves online by focusing
online channel.
on areas that differentiate them from the competition.
www.onwindows.com
When banking
experience is
all that counts,
count on us.
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our banking expertise is embedded from design, throughout your
business processes, right down to the keyboard, from one team
of financial services experts dedicated to your project. We work
with nine of the top ten global banks* covering services from Core
Banking systems transformation to Business Process outsourcing.
With a network of 15,000 professionals serving over 900 clients
worldwide, you can see why financial institutions count on us.
We move businesses forward with leading services and best
practices in banking, insurance and capital markets.
To learn more, visit us at www.capgemini.com/banking.
feature
Online banking
we’ve never seen before. SharePoint Server
allows banks to do this, while still meeting
regulatory requirements surrounding
content management.”
To create a more personal experience
online Marquez says that interest is increasing
in unified communications technologies.
“Access to specialist advisors is increasingly
important, especially if banks are going to
be offering more complex products over
the Web,” he explains. “As a result, banks
are increasingly looking to technologies that
give customers access to remote advisors,
complementing the essential face-to-face
contact in the branch.”
partner spotlight
Microsoft and its partners are working to transform the online financial services portal from a platform focused on
transactions to a full-blown relationship-building platform. Here you’ll find some of the key players in this space:
Appreciated by thousands of users across
Finteq is a software solution provider
Intertech has adopted the principle
the world, AMC Banking is a state-of-the-art
specialising in the development of payment
of understanding customers’ business
banking module for Dynamics AX. Built using
applications for processing of cheque and EFT
requirements and employing new
Microsoft Business Solution products, the
transactions, and storage of documents, both
technologies accordingly to offer IT
solution is flexible and scalable, providing
financial and non-financial. The Finteq solutions solutions and services designed to create
users with many significant benefits that
are specially designed to support cheque
added value for financial institutions.
provide the foundation for success.
truncation and straight-through processing of
Intertech has expertise in systems operations
www.amcbanking.dk
transactions, using Microsoft technology.
and management, network management,
www.finteq.co.za
information security, portal technologies,
business process management, document
management, decision support systems and
Capgemini Financial Services brings deep
data warehousing.
industry experience, innovative service
Fiserv is a leader in financial services technology www.intertech.com.tr
offerings and next-generation global delivery
solutions, driving innovation in payments,
to serve the financial services industry. With a
processing services, customer and channel
network of 15,000 professionals serving over
management, risk and compliance, and insights
900 clients worldwide, Capgemini collaborates and optimisation. More than 15,000 clients trust International Private Banking Systems (IPBS)
with leading banks, insurers and capital market Fiserv, including banks, credit unions and other
is a specialist provider of private banking
companies to create tangible value.
financial institutions and business clients.
and wealth management software for the
www.capgemini.com
www.fiserv.com
private banking sector. Its solution is a fully
integrated accounting and management
information system that provides all the
front-, middle- and back-office support
Figlo designs financial software that allows the
After 15 years of experience and dozens of
services required by financial institutions,
advisor to offer client-centric advice and present implementations in financial institutions of
international private banks, trust
this in a language the consumer understands.
almost 20 countries, Infocorp has delivered a
companies, mutual fund administrators,
We invested in Microsoft Silverlight,
tailored platform in order to answer the main
wealth management professionals, and
guaranteeing an amazing user experience. In
necessities of organisations, combined with
investment and asset managers.
the last 15 years Figlo has established a market-
the technological and business needs for the
www.ipbs.com
leading position with major Dutch banks and
future. IC Banking is a comprehensive solution
independent financial advisors.
for transactional electronic channels.
www.figlo.com
http://icbanking.infocorpgroup.com
www.onwindows.com
Glever agrees: “Unified communications
solutions can be used to consolidate the
communication between many channels,
therefore enabling the use of video
technology to deliver real-time expertise to
the consumer,” he explains.
It is innovations such as this that will
drive the future of online banking. “With the
right technologies in place, banks are able to
reach customers in new ways,” Al-Bashrawi
concludes. “Although the future is still
uncertain and there are still many challenges
ahead, banks will find that with the right
technologies and the right strategies,
anything is possible.”
Naizak provides best-of-breed solutions to
Signicat is a leading identity provider in the
Sybrin has grown considerably over the
businesses in the Middle East, specialising in
Nordic region, with identity services embracing
past 20 years to become a global leading
governance, risk management and compliance over 13 million potential users in Norway,
technology company providing information
solutions that deliver maximum value and
Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Signicat
processing solutions with particular emphasis
measurable success. Companies that work
provides identity as a service, giving access to
on image-based document management and
with us benefit not only from our pragmatic
national eID with a single point of integration.
payments systems. We specialise in clearing,
and valuable business acumen, but also from
Authentication, digital signing and archiving of
electronic funds transfer, voucher processing
our proven technical skills and service that has
documents are supported as online services.
and mobile switching among leading
helped our impressive portfolio of clients.
www.signicat.com
corporations, banks and clearing houses.
www.naizak.com
www.sybrin.co.za
Portrait Software provides technology that
StrategyOnline is a leading South African
The Validation Clearing Bureau is a supplier of
helps B2C organisations better manage
authority in financial software development.
patented system eInvoiceBanking, a solution
their customer relationships. It does this by
Based in Cape Town, StrategyOnline has
which integrates electronic score cards in the
enabling organisations to gather customer
customers in over 40 countries. Our flagship
financing of invoices. We are a South African
data from wherever it is held, to build customer
product is Personal Money Manager, which has
company, providing a multinational service
understanding, to anticipate and predict future
been licensed and rolled out in South Africa by
that allows the funding of cross-border
needs, and then to act on this insight consistently Nedbank, one of Africa’s largest banks.
transactions.
through every interaction. This results in
www.einvoicebanking.com
www.strategyonline.co.za
increased customer satisfaction leading to more
business with the same customer, while also
defending against customer attrition.
www.portraitsoftware.com
Stratus Technologies is a leading
supplier of Uptime Assurance. For
30 years, Stratus has been the
For more than 20 years, S1 has been a leader
vendor of choice for mission-
in developing software solutions that offer
critical environments where
flexibility and reliability. S1 Online Banking
failure is not an option. Stratus
solutions are used by large banks globally,
resilient servers (servers that must
including five of the world’s top ten. We
not fail) are widely acknowledged
address retail, corporate and wholesale
as the best-of-breed availability
banking needs with full support for mobile.
platform in the payments industry.
www.s1.com
www.stratus.com
33
feature
Advisory Services for Wealth Management
After the
storm
While the broader economy is showing distinct signs of recovery, many
investors are still cautious in how they approach their investments. Jasmine
Yalds finds out what wealth managers can do to attract today’s hard-toreach clients, and takes a look at the technology that can help
www.onwindows.com
“The last few years have
been somewhat humbling
for wealth advisors.
Margins have eroded
and new regulations will
emerge, which will demand
greater transparency”
Brad Prodger
Microsoft
For investors and their advisors the last few years have
been all about recovery. And what a recovery they’ve made.
According to the 2010 World Wealth report by Capgemini
and Merrill Lynch, today’s global wealth almost compensates
for 2008 losses as the high net worth individual (HNWI)
population has grown 17.1 per cent and HNWI wealth has
reached a staggering US$39 trillion.
But this doesn’t mean that everything is back on track for
wealth management professionals – far from it, in fact. Faced
with an ever-expanding range of financial instruments and
policies, pressures of industry consolidation, lower margins
and increased regulatory requirements, many are struggling
to keep their heads above water.
“The last few years have been somewhat humbling for
wealth advisors,” says Brad Prodger, Microsoft’s director
for worldwide advisory services. “Margins have eroded and
new regulations will emerge which will demand greater
transparency. It’s a very trying time.”
As if this wasn’t enough, there’s been a dramatic shift in
customer behaviour since the financial crisis. Investors are
much more cautious in their outlook and how they approach
their investments and markets, seizing a much more hands
on role in their finances. “HNWIs are not just bouncing back
and re-entering the markets,” explains Ileana van der Linde,
principal at Capgemini. “Rather, they are now much more
involved in managing their investment choices, asking for
more specialised and independent advice, transparency and
simplicity in their products and reports. They also want effective
portfolio management that helps them understand their true
risk exposure and tolerance before investing.”
“Many clients have created their own wealth and as such wish
to take a more hands-on approach than their predecessors,”
adds Mike Foley, CEO at wealth management software specialist
peterevans. “As a consequence, the wealth manager’s role needs
to be a very active one in order to advise clients appropriately.”
As clients become more educated about their own investment
choices, they increasingly expect specialised or independent
investment advice, and are revalidating advice from their
advisors through other sources, including peers, the Internet
and other research alternatives. “Today’s customers are far more
aware of what’s going on, and are a lot less loyal,” explains Lynne
Landau, product manager for private wealth management at
Temenos. “In the past they would keep their entire portfolio
with a single institution, but that’s no longer the case – they
35
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Advisory Services for Wealth Management
will shop around to find the best deal. With this
in mind, wealth professionals need to find new
ways of encouraging loyalty.”
Customers also increasingly expect more
personalised advice, which is aligned with
realistic and appropriate goal-setting based
on their individual risk profile. “They expect
integrated wealth management solutions that
help them achieve their current and future
financial goals,” explains Jenze Bosma, president
of Figlo. “They want an exceptional level of
personalised service and financial advice,
and expect advisors to adapt quickly to their
changing circumstances, market conditions or
tax laws. They expect a strong commitment to
integrity and transparency from their wealth
manager nowadays.”
Ian Murrin, CEO at Digiterre, agrees:
“Enhanced investor servicing is now more
critical than ever,” he explains. “In today’s
competitive marketplace only those advisors
that can offer a truly personalised service will be
able to retain their customers.”
It’s not just the financial crisis that has
changed customer behaviour. Customers also
want to connect with their advisors in new
ways. “Today’s customers lead busy lives,”
says Gordon Ejsmond-Frey, Microsoft’s EMEA
industry director for insurance. “They have
raised expectations for the quality of their
experience, and want to connect with their
advisors in a way that suits them.”
Bosma adds that advances in technology
have changed the way customers behave.
“Because of the availability of the Internet,
information is everywhere at anytime on any
device,” he explains. “The new wealthy are
more technologically savvy, and accustomed
to making financial decisions and participating
actively in the management of their wealth. To
compete successfully, financial firms need to
develop technology-friendly solutions to drive
their business models. Along with the need for a
new ‘smart’ technology platform is the need for
wealth managers to build personal relationships
with the new wealthy on a larger scale than ever
before. Wealth management clients expect to be
online with their advisor and notified on their
personal situation as changes occur.”
Failure to meet any of these expectations
www.onwindows.com
means only one thing: lost custom. However,
many wealth management firms are finding
themselves facing exactly that, because they
don’t have the infrastructure that will allow them
to quickly and effectively respond to customers.
“Being ahead of the game is challenging for
today’s advisors, the majority of which have
to deal with disparate silos of information,”
explains Murrin.
Ejsmond-Frey agrees, adding that this is
extremely counter-productive. “Top analysts
acknowledge that more than 50 per cent of
advisors’ time is spent administratively rather
than with a client,” he says. “By association,
spending productive time with clients is the
way to improve client satisfaction. Most firms
agree they would like to optimise financial
advisors’ working environments to improve
customer service.”
Thankfully, Microsoft and its partners can
make a real difference to the lives of advisors.
Take the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform,
for example. “For many firms focused on
wealth management, Microsoft Dynamics CRM
is an increasingly popular choice,” says Prodger.
“Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows advisors to
gain a 360-degree view of clients using flexible
marketing, sales, and customer services tools
that can meet industry-specific needs.”
“Microsoft Dynamics CRM business software
boosts customer satisfaction and loyalty, while
saving time and money, improving productivity,
and increasing revenue,” adds Bosma.
“Integration with existing wealth management
platforms and financial advice software is
easy, and a great result of current Microsoft
developments and partner network solutions.”
A recent implementation at financial services
company Raymond James illustrates just how
beneficial this solution can be. The company
has over 5,000 advisors who were using around
2,500 different third-party databases and
storing information on individual hard drives.
Disconnected systems and information led to
branch inefficiencies, prevented advisors from
sharing customer data and best practices, and
made it difficult to track information needed. By
leveraging Dynamics CRM for the user interface
and powerful SQL Server technologies to
integrate the database systems, Raymond James
“The cloud offers a genuine
opportunity to change
the economics of wealth
management. It enables
business to respond to
demands more effectively
and helps ensure employees
have on-demand access to
critical business information”
Gordon Ejsmond-Frey
Microsoft
has brought together relevant client information
and application functionality presented through
Dynamics, which to the user, is a natural
extension of Outlook. In this case, Raymond
James experienced 100 per cent user adoption,
increased advisor productivity and resulted in
highly satisfied clients.
Digiterre is also a devotee of the solution,
using it as the foundation for its xRM product.
“There’s a number of reasons why we choose to
develop in Dynamics CRM,” says Murrin. “For
a start it offers more flexibility than a traditional
‘packaged’ solution by enabling a great deal of
customisation and extensibility allowing you
to build an application that fits your business,
rather than forcing the business to fit the
application. It also offers greater productivity
than traditional bespoke development
by providing out-of-the-box features and
sophisticated tools to extend them.”
An ideal scenario
Today’s wealth management firms are
running many more scenario analyses for
HNWIs to show them the impact of their
decisions to invest in certain products, or
to even maintain certain asset allocations
and better illustrate what will help clients
meet their financial goals.
“Firms are increasingly integrating
behavioural finance concepts into the
advisory process, including more indepth risk questionnaires for the client,
as well as integrating more in-depth
client risk parameters into advisor
platforms, so that there is a consistent
experience across channels,” says Ileana
van der Linde, principal at Capgemini.
With more clients putting greater
demands on advisors’ time, these
technology improvements can certainly
help with productivity, efficiency, as well
as scalability. Some firms also see that
these technology improvements allow
them to extend the HNWI model across
more wealth bands, providing a more
in-depth and high-touch experience to
more clients.
“In the future, firms will need to adapt
But this isn’t the only technology that is
making leaps and bounds in this industry.
Released earlier this year, SharePoint Server
2010 is changing the way that financial
services connect their people, processes, and
information. “SharePoint 2010 offers the
potential for wealth managers to transform the
way they do their business,” says Prodger. “The
unified communications element alone can
deliver a huge return on investment, allowing
advisors to work much more productively.
French bank Crédit Agricole is one institution
that is already reaping the rewards, realising a
ten per cent saving on travel costs and improving
customer satisfaction.”
SharePoint Server 2010 also embraces social
networking – surfacing popular third-party
social content in a secure environment that
promotes effective information management
and compliance, allowing advisors to better
communicate to customers in the way that they
want. “By combining social networking tools with
online self-service capabilities, private banks and
advisors can build powerful integrated offerings
that improve trading volume and client loyalty
while creating a methodology for firms to capture
the new generation of investor,” says Landau.
Clearly there are many technologies out there
that can make a real difference to the industry,
and, with the growth of the cloud, adopting them
doesn’t have to be expensive. “The cloud offers
a genuine opportunity to change the economics
of wealth management,” says Ejsmond-Frey.
“It enables business to respond to demands
more effectively and helps ensure employees
have on-demand access to critical business
information about customers, partners and each
other. With the elastic infrastructure of Microsoft
cloud services, any advisor can do their job
effectively, and the costs are relatively minute.”
to heightened client demands for more
information, education and involvement
in the investment process,” van der
Linde concludes. “Understanding the
client’s emotional concerns or drivers
about investing in a turbulent market
will help firms steer clients to making
decisions that are right for them. More
and more wealth management firms
are thus investing time and energy into
re-evaluating how behavioural finance
tenets can be employed across their
various channels, including advisor
platforms, Web and mobile device
interaction. Those firms that understand
a client’s motivations at a deeper level
than just returns will certainly gain client
loyalty and trust.”
37
feature
cloud computing
The cloud
Since Windows Azure was launched at the beginning of 2010, Microsoft has undergone a major
shift in corporate strategy and is now putting its weight behind cloud computing. But what is the
cloud and how will it impact the financial services industry? Rebecca Lambert reports
The cloud. Described by Microsoft’s CEO Steve
Ballmer as the next step in the technology
journey, cloud computing promises to
revolutionise the way people manage and
organise their digital information. But what
does the term really mean? Speaking back
in May at the Microsoft CEO Summit 2010,
Ballmer explained: “In some senses I think
that the best way to think about the cloud is
it’s a place where we will all work. We’ll work
to fuse the best of what we think of as the PC
today, the phone, the TV, the Internet and
the corporate data centre. And it’s a land of
opportunity.”
For Microsoft, Windows Azure puts this
vision into practice. Serving as the foundation
for developing and running applications in
the cloud, this platform lies at the heart of the
company’s platform as a service (PaaS) strategy.
Composed of Windows Azure and SQL
Azure, and supported by development tools,
management and services from Microsoft, the
Windows Azure platform is built to be flexible
and give customers the ability to run the
technologies they choose in order to achieve
the power the cloud promises. Yet while uptake
of the platform has grown since its general
availability at the beginning of the year, Microsoft
knows it still has some way to go to convince
businesses and partners alike of the true value
of moving to the cloud.
For financial institutions in particular, which
are used to having secure, in-house data centre
and support structures in order to run all their
applications and store sensitive data, cloud
computing is relatively risky territory. Yes, cloud
computing may mean that banks can manage
www.onwindows.com
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addresses a crowd of developers at PDC10, detailing the company’s work
on extending the Microsoft platform to the cloud via Azure
high volume workloads better and achieve
greater efficiencies and cost reductions in the
process, but is it safe and reliable?
Karen Cone, Microsoft’s general manager
for the worldwide financial services sector,
is confident that financial institutions can
successfully leverage the cloud safely and
securely. “Our enterprise cloud computing
expertise brings a unique value proposition
to the sector,” she says. “We are focused on
delivering both the on-premise and cloud-based
solutions that our customers need to gain the
benefits of cloud services on their own terms.
They are able to leverage and extend their
existing IT investments to take advantage of
cloud computing, resulting in a reduction of
cost and the ability to enhance operations
through cloud-based improvements and build
transformative applications that create new
business opportunities.”
Microsoft’s chief technology strategist for
Worldwide Financial Services Bindia Hallauer
agrees, saying that the proof is in the pudding.
“The first thing we have to look at is the
evidence: we have financial services companies
running their applications in the cloud. We are
“Microsoft and its industry partner ecosystem for financial
services is committed to enabling our customers to
transform their businesses with the cloud”
Bindia Hallauer
Microsoft
committed to delivering a secure, reliable public
and private computing experience. We know
and understand that today’s interconnected
world is about the trustworthiness of not
just people, but also trustworthy computing
solutions and this requires a broad industry
collaboration effort. Microsoft and its industry
partner ecosystem for financial services is
committed to enabling our customers to
transform their businesses with the cloud.”
Particularly popular at the moment is the
adoption of Microsoft software and services
in the cloud. Aviva, the fifth largest insurance
company in the world, for example, recently
leveraged the Microsoft cloud, specifically
SharePoint Services. “Aviva is a really good
example of a company leveraging the cloud
to move forward while reducing costs, as well
as using our services for social networking
via collaboration” says Hallauer. “Microsoft’s
cloud approach to computing is about scale
and connecting to a variety of devices and
endpoints.”
Early successes such as this are a promising
indicator of good things to come. But if Microsoft
is to really succeed in its cloud initiative, its
partners must also be on board to help push
development and provide the necessary
extra functionality and services to encourage
customers to make the transition to the cloud
themselves. A recent announcement from Misys
highlights that this is indeed the case, with the
company working with Microsoft to deliver its
banking and capital markets applications via the
Windows Azure cloud platform. The technical
collaboration with Microsoft, announced at
Sibos 2010 in Amsterdam, will provide financial
institutions with the choice and flexibility
they need to maximise the return on their IT
investment and deliver innovative services to
their customers more rapidly.
Discussing the announcement, Ballmer
said: “Microsoft is very excited about the Misys
partnership. The combination of BankFusion, a
leading core banking application in the global
marketplace, and the Microsoft Windows Azure
cloud computing platform is significant. “This solution shifts the burden of IT
management to the cloud so banks can
concentrate on the business of banking,”
he continued. “Financial institutions will
have choice, flexibility and a high return on
their technology investments while offering
innovative services to customers more rapidly.”
Capgemini is also making significant
investments in the cloud. The company,
one of Microsoft’s leading partners, believes
that financial institutions have a lot to gain
from leveraging hybrid cloud models, where
businesses use a mix of on-premise and cloudbased software and services. “IT systems are the
factories of financial institutions,” says André
Cichowlas, CTO of the company’s Financial
Services Global Business Unit. “Since they power
the business, these factories must be both cost
efficient and agile. Therefore, we are seeing
increased investments in enterprise architectures
where the borders between systems are no
longer the organisation or business borders.
These architectures are being built using the new
IT bricks like software as a service, or will run
the applications on virtualised infrastructures.
Cloud is at the heart of these new architectures.
I believe the cloud can also support the need of
financial institutions to innovate faster through
rapid rollouts for new offers. Without huge
investments, the cloud lets financial services
organisations quickly test new offers in the real
world, allowing us to move from the traditional
model of design-build-run to a new model of
prototype-test-enhance.”
Mark Bates, CEO of RDT, an insurance
systems and rating engine software provider,
is of a similar mentality: “For financial services
organisations, the cloud offers an alternative
to traditional hosting and the ability to control
infrastructure costs. The more interesting
39
feature
cloud computing
aspect is the new business opportunities it
can bring. In insurance, for example, we are
working on a rating engine that exists in the
cloud, enabling insurers to be in real-time
control of their rates at the same time as
allowing all channels to interact with it and
guaranteeing they have the processing power
to respond to demand, such as that generated
by a high profile aggregator site advert. The
ability to flex the infrastructure to cope with
peaks in demand, where the time to process a
result helps determine if you appear at the top
of a comparison page, is highly advantageous.”
With Microsoft’s technology and a network
of partners committed to providing ongoing
support, the cloud business proposition
is compelling, but does it stand up to the
abundance of regulations that today’s financial
institutions must comply with? “As the first
major online service provider to earn ISO/
IEC 27001:2005 certification, Microsoft has
achieved external validation that its approach to
managing security risk in a global organisation
is both comprehensive and effective,” says
Hallauer. “ISO 27001 certification not only
helps ensure effective security management
practices, but also streamlines compliance
with multiple regulations by providing one
defensible standard of care. Our roadmap
includes supporting industry standards such
as payment card data security standard and
Sarbanes-Oxley.”
Cichowlas is confident that the cloud
should not really cause any extra issues when
it comes to compliance. “Today, financial
services organisations use IT systems that are
distributed across many data centres to enhance
availability,” he says. “Since these centres are
far from each other, the data is exchanged
over public networks. So we are already using
security systems and the cloud will use the
same solutions. The only new problem comes
from public cloud offers where you don’t know
exactly where the personal data could be stored
and processed. In this case, banks and insurance
companies must ask for specific service level
agreements that will protect them from, for
example, data crossing country borders.”
He notes that uptake of the cloud depends
not wholly on compliance concerns but
www.onwindows.com
The strategic alliance between Misys and Microsoft was a major announcement at Sibos 2010
making the customer aware of what exactly
the cloud can offer them over and above their
traditional infrastructure. “Cloud computing
is not just a new software offer or product; it
is a new way of thinking about the architecture
of IT systems to make them more cost efficient
and agile,” he says. “The great change is not in
the technology but in the way you are using
the technology. So the way a financial services
organisation currently manages and uses
technology will have to change to deal with
these new concepts.”
In line with this, RDT is planning a series
of events to help educate its customers. “By
demonstrating our offerings we can show
customers exactly what the cloud can do for
them. This greatly assists us when describing
both the financial and operational benefits of
cloud computing,” says Bates. “For example,
access to real-time data and the ability to offer
self-service are becoming increasingly important
in the financial services world; the cloud can
enhance this significantly.”
Looking to the future, Cichowlas thinks the
cloud has the potential to change the way the
financial services industry operates: “The image
of a financial services institution is big walls
and vaults. This is also how financial services
“Cloud computing is not
just a new software offer
or product; it is a new
way of thinking about the
architecture of IT systems
to make them more cost
efficient and agile”
André Cichowlas
Capgemini
organisations have seen data centres. For many
years, security was about access control and
size of the walls. Service-oriented architecture
brought the ability to break the applications
over the middle layer and enabled flexibility and
innovation. The cloud will bring added flexibility
to all of the architecture – including the physical
infrastructure. As the IT factory becomes more
modular, I think financial services will become
more agile and innovative, allowing financial
institutions to adapt faster to customer needs.”
focus
insurance
Documents: the best
practice approach
Mike Davies looks at how insurers can transform document templates into information assets
Insurers use a wide range of document
templating approaches but they are typically
’technical’ in nature, ignore content management
principles, defy good governance and hinder
operational agility and effectiveness. However
the application of industry best practice can
help insurers empower their business users and
reduce reliance on the IT department.
Insurance institutions will always use a variety
of document templates, but the reality is that many
contain the same content or use the same business
logic, resulting in duplication and increased
maintenance overhead and consequential increased
risk of compliance failures.
Taken as a whole, this leads to a governance
nightmare and the process of maintaining and
controlling business documents becomes unwieldy
and inflexible, as it often requires technical support
from the IT department. All too often this situation
occurs because document governance is not
considered a boardroom issue.
However the application of industry best
practices can help insurers empower their business
users and reduce reliance on the IT department.
There are five high level steps to achieving this.
1. Establish compliance requirements. These
should be implemented into a wider framework
where possible to ensure that establishing
compliance requirements in the document definition
context is not done in isolation. It involves breaking
down each of the elements that are subject to
compliance or regulation including branding, style,
layout, presentation, content, storage and retention
requirements. A policy then needs to be created
and communicated to all relevant parties specifying
exactly how these elements should be implemented.
2. Build and communicate corporate standards.
Control and enforcement of corporate standards
is closely aligned to compliance. Having clear
standards communicated to all staff to follow is
vital if the value of investing in a brand is to be
maximised. This can be a mammoth task especially
when a merger or acquisition has taken place.
3. Separate content from presentation and layout.
Content should be treated as an information asset in
its own right and a content item should be created
once and then maintained over time. It should also
be available for reuse elsewhere in the organisation.
How the information asset is presented may vary
for different usages, for different corporate brands
and on different media such as online and in
print. However, it follows that styles and corporate
branding must be maintained separately and
applied to content as required for a specific use.
The overall management of content should
remain the responsibility of business users
rather than the IT department. This can help
enable good content governance and ensure
content quality.
4. Devolve management of content. Getting this
step right is a critical part of the overall process. At
the heart of good content management is the idea
that content needs to be ‘owned’. Only by assigning
this ownership can the compliance and governance
described above be truly achieved as there will be
a single person that has to provide accountability
for the content items for which they are responsible.
www.onwindows.com
5. Separate business rules into logical groups.
The final element to establishing best practice
is separating business rules into logical groups
that govern application data, document content,
layout and distribution. Each of these has a
separate but important purpose and this lends
itself to the development of specialised skills
and knowledge, which may reside with different
individuals. The three main business rule
categories are application data rules, document
layout rules and document content rules.
Benefits of implementing best practice guidelines
A key part of implementing the guidelines is the
separation of duties around managing critical
business documents, and making it clear where the
responsibility lies. This has to be achieved in order
to move away from the informal mix of IT and
business control that typically exists today.
More effective management and control of
the processes that govern documents allows
financial institutions to develop real business
agility and flexibility. For example, ABN AMRO
implemented the standard correspondence
management tool ITP from Aia Software and
reduced the time required to make a change to
its business documents “from two months to one
day, without assistance from IT and without any
concession to reliability on change control.”
Insurers that follow the best practice guidelines
will succeed in transforming their document
templates from an unstructured and unwieldy mix
of documents into information assets that can be
more easily managed and leveraged throughout the
organisation, thus enabling compliance, enhanced
business flexibility and ultimately sustainable
competitive advantage.
Case study: SDT optimises document creation
SDT Financial Software Solutions offers business by implementing ITP alongside their business
applications to the financial services industry
applications.
for the administration of life assurance, group
It is crucial for SDT’s clients to be
investment schemes, employee benefits, credit
able to work independently with their
life assurance, micro-insurance, and medical
correspondence solution. They do not want
loans on a single platform. SDT is a Microsoft
to be dependant on SDT’s consultants for the
Gold Partner and its applications are based on
implementation of changes to documents.
Microsoft technology.
This requirement formed a perfect match
Initially, SDT started the development of a
with Aia Software’s philosophy of giving the
correspondence system itself, but soon realised
business user full control over document
that it needed a solution that matches the
creation and enabled the delivery of a
dynamics of its market, which requires a far
flexible, interactive and user-friendly solution
more comprehensive communication strategy
to SDT’s clients. Thanks to the integration
capable of dealing with high volumes of
of ITP into SDT’s Exergy, clients can now
correspondence. SDT integrates automated
automatically generate policy documents and
correspondence and document generation
personalised correspondence.
Mike Davies is UK sales director of Aia Software UK
43
in practice
Nationwide Building Society
Faster payments for
UK building society
Nationwide Building Society in the UK is a
major force in retail financial services. With
15 million members, 1.2 million mortgage
borrowers, total assets of approximately
£200 billion (US$277 billion), around 700
branches and 3.2 million Internet banking
users, the building society has built a strong
reputation by sticking to a mutual model
of ownership in which no dividend is paid
to shareholders. So when a directive from
the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was
made, it was a good fit for Nationwide to
be one of the 13 founding organisations
implementing the UK’s Faster Payments
Services initiative. The objective of this
initiative was to reduce payment times
between different banks’ customer accounts
from three working days to near real time.
The new Faster Payments Service
was launched in May 2008, and, with it,
Nationwide hoped that it had developed
a potential solution to meet its obligation
to the UK’s regulatory authorities. But
attempts to scale what had been built were
faltering and the building society had to
decide how to proceed.
Peter Stafford, director of IT, Nationwide
Building Society, says: “This was a big challenge
for us; we were faced with two choices – one of
which was to rip and replace, and the other to
modify the work done so far on our existing
systems. The timescales were extremely
tight. We decided to work with a partner to
redevelop the existing services fast.”
www.onwindows.com
Nationwide was one of the first to implement the UK’s Faster Payments Service
Nationwide had the advantage of a longterm relationship with Microsoft, having
chosen Microsoft technology for some of its
core banking systems, as well as its messaging
environment. However, Nationwide was
looking for a much greater commitment than
just a delivery partner deploying its own
products. Stafford says: “We were looking for
a partner to take control of overall delivery of
a complete solution.”
Nationwide chose Microsoft Services to
put the Faster Payments Service back on
track because of its existing relationship and
the promise of a ‘One Microsoft’ approach,
where different teams from Microsoft unite
to provide the best customer solution.
Commenting on the project, Jeremy Wood,
divisional director of Customer Operations at
Nationwide Building Society, says: “I’m glad
we made the decision to work with Microsoft
Services at such a critical juncture in the
project’s development. Microsoft Services
got us to a place that we could have reached
ourselves, but it would have been a slower
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ne, aperiam
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of the banking
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make”
Gordon
Esmond Building
Freye, Microsoft
Jeremy Wood,
Nationwide
Society
process. Nationwide had worked with them
before, but not previously in constructing a
critical business system. Microsoft Services
built the infrastructure that took payments
from customers’ accounts and delivered them
to the Faster Payments Service Gateway.”
The development was done at Microsoft
facilities, with software being delivered to
Nationwide at different stages to achieve
various milestones in the project. Microsoft
provided an infrastructure engineer and a test
lead to support the deployment of the builds
and involved Microsoft Premier Support at
the design stage to optimise ongoing backup
for the solution.
The orchestration layer was built using
Microsoft BizTalk Server, which connects
to the Nationwide Faster Payments Service
Gateway. The solution also includes Microsoft
SQL Server data management software and the
.NET Framework development environment.
Wood says: “Microsoft Services brought a new
dimension to this development, with its ability
to deliver an agile and scalable business solution.
Our teams worked closely together to help
ensure that the application fitted with our other
core systems – of which there were many.”
Microsoft Services rapidly became a
trusted advisor to Nationwide. In building
the solution, Microsoft was prepared to
work with other vendor products, drawing
on the expertise of its product groups and
the wider Microsoft support organisation.
Stafford says: “Microsoft Services took
responsibility for managing other suppliers
and bringing the project together. The
relationship has got to a point now where
there is a lot of trust – we’re developing
solutions that are to our mutual benefit.”
Microsoft Services accelerated delivery of
the Faster Payments Service to Nationwide
without compromising quality, and exceeded
its contractual obligations to ensure the best
possible outcome. Using an agile delivery
approach, it completed the analysis, design,
development and stabilisation in just 14
The Faster Payments Service has greatly accelerated payments processing
weeks. Microsoft Services focused on early
time to value to get the solution implemented
as soon as possible to the right quality.
Stafford says: “Microsoft Services had a good
understanding of our underlying technologies
and that helped in finding a solution to fit into
a complex IT infrastructure.”
On going live, the solution was quickly scaled
up to process more than 1 million transactions
in a way that surpassed the building society’s
expectations. Stafford says: “Microsoft Services
provided solid project management skills and
development methodologies, and the ability to
deliver within the spirit and not just the letter
of the contract.”
Introducing the Faster Payments Service
was a business-critical initiative and today,
Nationwide is able to process around 600,000
payments every day as a result of the joint
project. Wood says: “The Faster Payments
Service offers customers a new way of banking;
they can transfer money almost immediately.
The customer experience has been enhanced
by the solution and feedback has been highly
complimentary, with demand likely to grow
over time. In the future, we’re going to see the
Faster Payments Service become much more
of a feature of the banking arrangements
customers make.”
Nationwide Building Society
Solution: Faster Payments Service system
Benefits: Faster payments, rapid delivery,
in-depth support, 50 per cent reduction in
lines of code, improved knowledge transfer
Technologies: Microsoft .NET Framework,
BizTalk Server, SQL Server
Partner: Microsoft Services
45
in practice
“Digiterre truly exceeded our expectations, this
really did feel like one team working together to
meet deadlines and achieve common objectives”
MAN
Robert Rogers, Man
Going
beyond CRM
Man is a leading global independent asset
manager dedicated solely to alternative
investment management. Renowned for its
creative and productive use of technology
in order to deliver business efficiencies
and competitive edge, the company
recently updated its customer relationship
management (CRM) systems to Microsoft
Dynamics CRM.
Man’s existing systems were fragmented and
built on an ageing technology platform; this
resulted in gaps in the sales process and a high
total cost of ownership. The company’s strong
organic growth had also meant that some of the
back-office processes were naturally inconsistent
across the different regions Man operates in,
making it difficult to compare data across
geographies and to deliver a consistent level
of sales oversight. Seeking a system that could
integrate with its core systems and provide a
360-degree view of key relationships across all
major functions of the business, the company
set about looking for an implementation
partner that could fulfil the following criteria:
extensive experience in Agile development
methodologies; excellence in customising and
deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM; a deep
understanding of the investment management
sector; and a company-wide belief in and
commitment to working in partnership with
its clients. On this basis, Man chose Digiterre,
a supplier of CRM and xRM solutions to the
investment management and banking sectors.
“We selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM
because we felt that it could be used to solve
www.onwindows.com
challenges we faced in the CRM domain and
would have a wider application to different parts
of our organisation over time,” says Jeff Illian, the
company’s chief enterprise architect. “It was also
important for us to work with a partner who had
a deep understanding both of the technologies
involved and of the way our business operates
and had a proven track record in co-teaming to
create business benefits.”
Following an Agile development
methodology, the entire project with Digiterre
lasted ten months. Data migration was a key
stage of the project, with nearly three million
records needing to be imported from multiple
data sources, representing 70,000 accounts,
120,000 contacts and 2.5 million activities.
As the new system replaced the costly and
fragmented legacy infrastructure, defining
the enterprise’s workflows was also a key
requirement and the new system now has over
thirty workflows with ten custom workflow
activities. It is used by over twenty business
units, with forty-five customer entities and
interfaces to multiple systems including the Man
Enterprise Bus, two fund accounting systems for
holdings information, the e-commerce platform
and an in-house sales materials distribution
system. The system is also used by different
user types comprising sales and marketing,
compliance and distribution and hence user
roles, permissions and functionality had to be
created and managed.
“Digiterre truly exceeded our expectations,”
says Robert Rogers, development manager,
Man. “This really did feel like one team
working together to meet deadlines and
achieve common objectives.”
Today, one of the major benefits of the new
system is that Man is able to better manage and
measure its sales processes, and with its ability
to distribute sales documents automatically
using a rules-based approach, the team is
experiencing greater efficiencies. The system has
also been especially useful to the compliance
team in enforcing workflows for regulations
such as MiFID and keeping accurate audit trails
of interaction with customers.
Originally conceived as a CRM project, the
new system has gone way beyond the remit of
a traditional CRM. Man continues to use the
Microsoft platform and to work with Digiterre
in continuous development of the system in line
with the changing business environment.
Man
Solution: Relationship management system
Benefits: Managed, consistent sales process,
improved regulatory compliance, automated
document distribution, low cost of ownership
Technologies: Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Partner: Digiterre
in practice
Skandinavisk Data Center
“Our experience shows that substantial cost reduction without
loss of quality is possible on a larger-scale, lower-cost Windows
platform with the support we have had from Microsoft”
Erik Jakobsen, Skandinavisk Data Center
Migrating seamlessly
Formed in 1963, and owned by 150
financial institutions in Denmark,
Sweden, Norway and the Faroe Islands,
Skandinavisk Data Center (SDC) is
responsible for providing core banking
services to these banks across Scandinavia.
With cost reduction at the forefront of the
company’s business imperatives, a solution
was required to help minimise spending,
while retaining and gaining new member
banks. By moving its core banking system
from its mainframe platform to Microsoft
SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server
2008, SDC is expected to save US$20 million
annually, giving it a competitive edge and
eliminating additional internal expense.
The project, which started in May 2009,
is taking place in three stages. The first
phase was completed in May 2010 and
migrated 71 of the heaviest transactional
applications from mainframe code to .NET,
bringing them to the Windows platform.
The remaining transactional applications
will be migrated for the banks and some of
the online banks in the second phase, and
is expected to be complete by spring 2011.
From spring 2011 to 2012 the rest of the
online banks will be migrated and the DB2
database will be moved to Microsoft SQL
Server, completing the final phase of the
project’s three-year journey.
“Our primary concern is cost reduction
without loss of quality. Growing competition
combined with the financial crisis increases
focus on production costs all over the
Western world. This goes for the banks
affiliated with SDC as well – IT being their
second largest expenditure,” says Erik
Jakobsen, CEO of SDC. “On the other hand
SDC’s data centre near Copenhagen, Denmark
it is essential that cost can be cut without
endangering the reliability and efficiency
of our core system. The system is, as the
name says, the core of daily business for
our customers. Our experience shows that
substantial cost reduction without loss of
quality is possible on a larger-scale, lowercost Windows platform with the support
we have had from Microsoft. Already we are
running 1.1 million transactions per day on
the new platform.”
SDC’s transition off the mainframe
to a more flexible, scalable and highly
available Microsoft platform with improved
capabilities will enable SDC to respond more
quickly and effectively to its customers’
demands. Microsoft Services, Microsoft’s
consulting and enterprise support division,
has also assisted the company with lifecycle
service and support solutions to address its
mission-critical need for high availability and
support of the core system deployed on the
Microsoft platform.
Skandinavisk Data Center
Solution: Mainframe migration
Benefits: High performance, facilitates a
gradual migration, comprehensive suite of
development tools, cost-effective scalability
Technologies: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5,
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, Windows Server
2008 R2, Host Integration Server 2006, System
Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, System
Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, Visual
Studio
Partner: Fujitsu, Alchemy Solutions
47
signing out
retail banking
Looking ahead
How is the financial services industry innovating today?
Rebecca Lambert examines the role of the mobile phone in retail banking
With a smart new interface, a whole host of
Microsoft services to its name and an approach
that goes against the grain of its app-focused
rivals, Windows Phone 7 is now officially out in
the public domain. While much of Microsoft’s
advertising is targeted at the consumer and
shows what the phone can do to enhance social
interactions and entertainment experiences, what
must not be forgotten is that Windows Phone 7 is
also very much a device for doing business. The
phone already comes with strong SharePoint and
Office integration, and Microsoft has shared its
intentions to further develop enterprise-focused
functionality in the near future.
Windows Phone 7 devices are a world apart
from the mobiles of old and for the retail banking
sector, today’s smartphones offer huge potential.
According to the Efma and Finacle from Infosys
report Innovation in Retail Banking produced this
year, bankers are the first to admit that the industry
is not generally perceived to be innovative. This is
supported by a recent survey of European consumers
by TNS Europe, which found that only 24 per cent
of its respondents were able to name any recent
banking innovations. Customer facing innovations
such as mobile banking and payments, however, can
change this.
Gartner research predicts that by 2013, mobile
phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web
access devices worldwide. Taking this into account,
mobile banking or payment services are proving
an effective way for banks (and others) to connect
with more consumers than is currently possible
through branch and ATM networks. Here’s what
some leading global financial institutions are already
doing on the mobile phone platform to enhance
their service offering:
Launched in 2009, BOKU is a global service that
does not require users to have a credit card or bank
www.onwindows.com
Ballmer introducing the first wave of Windows Phone 7 devices back in October
account to make a payment. Customers can enter
their mobile phone number on the Web site, reply to
a text message and then everything is automatically
charged to the customer’s mobile phone bill.
FNB launched an eWallet product in November
2009, enabling customers to instantly send money
to any South African resident with a mobile phone.
The person receiving the money only needs a
mobile phone to access the eWallet from which they
can make purchases online, make withdrawals from
FNB ATMs without using a bank card, buy airtime
or send the money on to another mobile phone.
In 2007 Safaricom in Kenya launched the
M-PESA service, which allows subscribers to transfer
money to anyone else in the country with a mobile
phone and M-PESA account.
In 2010, the city of Nice in France became the
location of the first commercial launch of mobile
contactless payments. The whole project, using
the brand name ‘cityzi’, is based on collaboration
between the city, the major mobile operators and
the major banks to create what is described as an
‘open ecosystem’.
Although it is extremely difficult to predict
how the market for new mobile services will
develop, early adopters of mobile strategies are
seeing promising results. Banks must look at this
opportunity strategically and pragmatically – the
ROI and loyalty payback can be substantial.
Some of the information in this article has been taken
directly from the Innovation in Retail Banking report,
which was prepared by Michael Pearson of Clarus
Investments, on behalf of Efma and Finacle from Infosys
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