TECHNOLOGYin banking presents both oppor-tunities and challenges for 2010 and beyond. Ithas also helped to make Indian banking worldclass. In the tightly regulated banking sector, ithelps in compliance on one hand and on the

other, in improving customer experience. For someprivate sector banks that were set up after the ReserveBank issued fresh banking licences in the 1990s, tech-nology has been a great enabler and leveler, allowingthem to compete with existing players effectively byacquiring new customers at viable costs.

These were some issues thrown up at the 'Emerg-ing Opportunities and Challenges in 2010' panel dis-cussion by Robin Roy, associate director, PriceWater-houseCoopers. Mr Roy, who is responsible for finan-cial services across a number of competenciesincluding business strategy, process improvementand risk management, brought to bear his experiencein tackling some key issues such as technology inte-gration in a merger and acquisition transaction.

The high-powered panel consisting of Mr SanjaySharma, managing director and CEO, IDBI Intech,which provides IT and IT-enabled services to IDBIBank, Vikram Sud, chief operating officer, KotakMahindra Bank and its subsidiaries, Umesh Jain,president and chief information officer, Yes Bank,Harish Shetty, executive vice-president - IT, HDFC

Bank, Vikrant Chowdhary, who leads IBM SoftwareBusiness for the Financial Services Cluster, were ableto do more than justice to the issues. Also presentwere Ramandeep Singh Walia, Head Systems Engi-neering, Check Point Software Technologies, India &SAARC, and Kiran Desai, VP and business head -managed IT services, Wipro Infotech.

According to Mr Sharma, the biggest change thathas happened today because of technology in bank-ing is higher productivity and innovation on paymentproducts to customers. He said the National PaymentCorporation of India (NPCI), which is getting set upand which has banks as stakeholders, would changethe way micro payments are done. "Today, when wedo mobile banking it is with one bank but going for-ward, it will be possible to transact across banks andmobile operators. Probably all micro payments willmove to mobile banking," he added.

Mr Sud, who was earlier with Citigroup in varioussenior positions, said Kotak Mahindra Bank had theadvantage of starting on a clean slate as compared toCitibank, whose diverse technology platforms wereakin to spaghetti.

Kotak, he said, used a single customer relationship

number as a point of reference for all the customer'stransactions be it opening a savings account, demataccount, or buying an insurance. "The advantage ofthis is that we figured out what customers were do-ing across many different parts of the bank. Other-wise we would not have got a perfect 360 degreeview of the customer," said Mr Sud.

The IT team in Kotak is surprisingly less than 30

people on the applications side because the bank ef-fectively uses systems integrators and vendors to dodevelopment. On the regulatory side, Mr Sud hadcontrarian view. "We are blessed that we are regulat-ed, we should never forget that. Anybody can startselling soaps or open hotels but there are not toomany people who can jump in and steal our businessbecause getting a banking licence is not easy. The flip

side is we have a lot of reporting to do and we have alot of rules and regulations to follow," he added.

If Kotak is a young bank, Yes Bank is even younger.Its technology department is thin and is not even puretechnology but a mix of business analysts and technicalstaff. "We are more business focused than technologyfocused. Technology is something we mostly outsource.From day one our focus has been customer product

pricing strength and how to differentiate ourselves inthe market -- technology adoption has driven that,"said Mr Jain. Last month, the bank launched an inno-vative micro-payments product on Nokia handsets.

The bank uses business intelligence tools to do tar-geted sales. "Instead of doing carpet bombing, we dofocused shooting. I don't end up trying to sell a chil-dren's insurance product to customer who's notmarried," pointed out Mr Jain.

Compared to the new private banks, HDFC Bank,which started in 1994 may seem relatively old. But thebank has successfully evolved from a core corporatebank to a well-managed retail bank, pointed out Mr Roy.

Mr Shetty said the bank decided to go with a cen-tralized technology set up though the telecom infra-structure in India was very bad back then, keeping inmind the interest of the customer and that they needto serviced not only by the branch but by the bank aswhole.

"This year our focus is to reach the unbanked inrural areas. Our aim is to reach 10 million customerswithin the next three years. Earnings aren't high inrural business so the transaction cost should be athird of our current costs," Mr Shetty said. The sec-ond focus area for the bank is internal productivityand if the tools that are available, such as even a sim-ple MS Excel, are being used.

Mr Chowdhary touched on the uniqueness of In-dia as a market. "While we (IBM) do operate in aglobal market making prices India-like, making en-gagement models India-like is something that's partof the responsibility," he said, adding that one of thelarge public sector banks pushed the company to ac-tually raise the bar.

Earlier, making a presentation to the audience, MrDesai said Wipro worked on four levers to improveservice productivity. "Whenever an engineer visits aparticular branch or PC can he carry a preventivemaintenance tool kit that he runs through to ensureall the issues are taken care of? We worked out whatall the incidents are repetitive in nature, and if canwe automate some of those incidents, so it gets re-duced or eliminated. Lastly, we focused on produc-tivity enhancement," he explained.

Mr Desai also spoke on why banks should consider re-mote delivery and its advantages such as reduced capexspends and better cost efficiency. Mr Walia highlightedthe different challenges faced by a bank under fourheads: security challenges, operational challenges, chal-lenges related to employees and lastly, the security threatposed by the proliferation of applications such as Twitter,Facebook and YouTube. Check Point has security solu-tions maps to address these challenges and unique solu-tions such as virtual desktop and mobile security solu-tions. "A financial inclusion project reaches the cus-tomer through a mobile phone. So mobile phonesecurity is very, very important," he emphasized.

TECHNOLOGY has become an inte-gral part of banking. Like the rest ofthe world, in India, banks (and the fi-nancial services industry, in general)

are at the forefront of technology adoption.Not surprisingly, it is a key part of thegrowth strategies of banks and the chal-lenges they face in their business. Conse-quently, in addition to the CEO, the CIOalso plays a key role in the bank's growth.

Today technology is viewed as an impor-tant tool for competitive advantage by mostbanks, and will continue to be so in the fu-ture given the flexibility it gives banks tolaunch new products to suit customer re-quirements. Developing new products is thetop priority for banks in 2010, according to asurvey of 60 CXOs of 25 leading banks in thecountry. The survey polled 15 CEOs andCMDs, 27 CIOs and 18 business heads.

The second most important priority for theCXOs surveyed was improving internal effi-ciencies. "Many of our respondents said thatimproving internal efficiencies will be chal-lenging this year as their banks are planning toscale up product development as well as thedevelopment by new delivery channels," thesurvey, carried out by VSN Media & MarketingServices under its iCXO platform, said.

Encouragingly, an overwhelming majori-ty -- 71% of respondents -- expect to spendmore on IT in 2010. Close to 30% of the re-spondents expect to spend 40% or higher onIT in 2010, while 43% said they would spendeven slightly more than that. Even the rest ofthe respondents that don't expect to spendmore on IT in 2010, said their IT spendswould be maintained at previous year levels.

The country's top bank SBI Bank has em-barked on a massive rollout of ATMs, andmany other banks are also plan to scale uptheir operations. For instance, ICICI Bank, oneof the largest banks in the private sector, isplanning to scale up its branch network signif-icantly. IDBI Bank plans to double the numberof branches it currently has, while Punjab Na-tional Bank plans to have 100,000 new touchpoints, according to the survey. These initia-tives would require the banks to scale up theirIT infrastructure correspondingly.

Upgradation of IT and compliance werethe third and fourth most important priori-ties for CXOs. Compliance has always been amajor priority area for banks, although new-er issues are now vying for their attention.

For instance, change management is nowCXO priority, especially in public sectorbanks where both employees and customersneed to adapt and acclimatise to changesbrought about by use of technology in bank-ing. Building new delivery channels was alsoa priority area for respondents.

BUSINESS PRIORITIES COME WITH IT

CHALLENGES

The top IT challenge for CXOs of banks wasmaintaining high availability and peak per-formance of IT systems, followed by manag-ing major upgrades and expansion of IT in-frastructure. In this context, the surveyfound that IT performance continues to bemeasured by the level of system uptime oravailability delivered. A related area of con-cern, where there could be room for im-provement, is IT projects getting completedon time, within the deadline, and withinbudgets. Only 28% of CXOs say that projectsare on deadline and within budget.

"A little more than 70 per cent (of respon-

dents) said that integrating critical business ap-plications into a common workflow posed amajor challenge. About 57% were of the viewthat integration of disparate systems and net-working technology acquired over the yearsposed a difficult task. While 42 per cent saidthat integrating management and administra-tive data from various IT systems and applica-tions was a challenge too," the survey said.

Ensuring the security of the bank's ITsystems and data was the third biggestchallenge for the CXOs with the risingnumber of internal threats and externalones such as phishing and malaware.

The recent recovery in sentiment and moodof optimism in the economy was also reflectedin the fact that the bank CXOs ranked control-ling IT costs only as the fifth major challenge,behind application integration and informa-tion delivery. Aligning IT with business objec-tives, finding quality staff, and selecting andimplementing new technologies, were pre-dictably the other challenges faced by CXOs.

Respondents felt aligning IT with businesswas a continuous process with business objec-tives being met with every IT project under-taken. Most were of the opinion that IT de-partments were functioning more closelywith business units than a year ago.

The strategic relevance of IT for banking wasalso clear from the fact that 57 per cent of re-spondents said that IT was usually consulted inthe planning phase of a new business initia-tive, although an equal number felt IT was stillbeing perceived as a service provider and notthe core of the banking enterprise.

HOW THE IT SPENDS STACK UP

In an increasingly competitive environ-ment, customer-facing applications are thenumber one priority for IT spends by banks,followed by infrastructure security. Sys-tems and applications integration, data se-curity and privacy, core banking platforms,databases, network and systems manage-ment are the other areas in which banks in-tend to invest. Back-up and disaster recov-ery is also becoming an investment focusand has become more critical in the light ofterror attacks and the possibility of naturaldisasters like floods and fires. As banks be-come more open to outsourcing, disasterrecovery and applications management arealso two functions that are being out-sourced by many banks, the survey said.Some banks are also outsourcing IT securi-ty and distributed systems services.

Data centre consolidation and renova-tions, regulatory compliance, mobile andwireless technology are other areas of in-vestment focus. In terms of technologiesexpected to have maximum impact onbusiness, internet and mobile technologiesfigured right on top of the stack, with busi-ness and analytics coming a close second."New generation private banks and foreignbanks are gung-ho on business intelligence,while their public sector competitors be-lieve it is the future," the CXO survey said.Web services and service-oriented architec-ture came in third place followed by virtu-alization and cloud computing. Unifiedcommunications, despite all the hype, wasranked a distant sixth by the CXOs.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES MUMBAI

WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH 20108

Its all about creatingefficiencies & focusingon growth in home &

foreign markets. Havingimplemented core

systems, the need is totap the levers across

product manufacturing,distribution, customer

service to delivergrowth & tap into

emergingopportunities.

N G SubramaniamPresident, TCS

Financial Solutions

We are blessedthat we areregulated.

Anybody can startselling soaps oropen hotels butthere are not too

many people whocan jump in and

steal our business.

Vikram Sud Group COO, Kotak

Mahindra Bank

Instead of doingcarpet bombing,we do focused

shooting. I don’tend up trying tosell a children’s

insurance productto customer who’s

not married.

Umesh JainPresident & CIO,

Yes Bank,

In the last 3-4years, customer

centricity hasgone up

significantly.Kiran Desai VP & Business Head -Managed IT Services,

Wipro Infotech.

From Left to right: Umesh Jain, President & CIO, Yes Bank, Vikram Sud, Group COO, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Robin Roy, Associate Director,Financial Services, PwC, Sanjay Sharma, MD & CEO, IDBI Intech, Harish Shetty, Executive VP-IT, HDFC Bank,

Vikrant Chowdhary, Country Manager FSS Cluster, Software Group, IBM India

This year ourfocus is to reachthe unbanked inrural areas. Ouraim is to reach

10 millioncustomers

within the nextthree years.

Harish ShettyExecutive VP-IT,

HDFC Bank,

Revenues fromcybercrime

exceed thosefrom drugtrafficking.Ramandeep Singh

Walia Head Systems Engineer-

ing, Check PointSoftware

Technologies, India &SAARC,

Today, when wedo mobile

banking it is withone bank but

going forward, itwill be possible to

transact acrossbanks and mobile

operators.

Sanjay Sharma MD & CEO, IDBI Intech

While we dooperate in a

global marketmaking prices

India-like,making

engagementmodels India-like

is part of theresponsibility

Vikrant Chowdhary Country Manager FSS

Cluster, SoftwareGroup, IBM India

STRAIGHT TALK

Technology In Banking:

Banks plan to boost tech spending in 2010

To receive a copy of the survey email:info@icxoonline.com

iCxO:BANKING TECHNOLOGY CONFLUENCE 2010PRESENTED BY TCSBaNCS, IBM IN ASSOCIATION WITH WIPRO & CHECK POINT

Print Partner

Sudhir Narasimhan, Director-Content, iCxO joins the panelists and speakers to unveil the iCxO special edition: Banking Technology 2010

2010 And Beyond

A Consumer Connect Initiative

UCheck PointSOITWARE TECHNOLOGIES LTD

W1PROAppl��,g Th� u1�h�

PRESENTED BY IN 1�SSGE ATIEJN WITH

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