With almost 3 decades' experience working with the world’s leading financial institutions, Misys has long been engaged in addressing complex business issues by combining technical expertise with deep business knowledge. Nowhere is this more true than in the field of Enterprise Banking - the application of computer systems to address the most complex business processes associated with core banking and channels.
The Need
As competition has intensified and customer needs increased, so too have the challenges faced by banks. The pressure on margins has increased, often driven by new market entrants with lower cost bases, and the avalanche of new regulations and compliance seems to gather pace daily. Customers demand access to their financial information regardless of their location or the time of day, and if their current financial institution can’t provide it they can always go to someone else who can.
Often installed decades ago, legacy core banking systems just can’t cope - it may be impossible to support the latest products and when it is, the process is complex, time-consuming and expensive. Just keeping these systems running can often consume more than 70% of the IT budget, leaving little money to gain advantage over competitors.
Gaining insight into customer needs can be extremely difficult, involving the collation of a large amount of data from disparate systems held in different formats. And by the time the data is collected it is often too late - the customers’ needs have moved on. Executing cross channel sales campaigns efficiently and effectively is often impossible.
The Goal
Put simply, banks need technology to support, rather than inhibit their ambitions. Banks need to be able to:
- Gain a single yet complete view of customer relationships, easily;
- Deploy comprehensive yet proven banking functionality, quickly;
- Design, deploy and monitor the progress of new products and services, simply;
- Support the channels customers want, cost effectively;
- Run multiple, overlapping sales and marketing campaigns, simultaneously;
- Turn large volumes of data into actionable information, accurately;
- Deploy transparent, best practice business processes, seamlessly;
- Improve the levels of compliance and security, universally.
In addition, banks need their technology to help them migrate existing systems to a single, integrated, platform architecture, built using the latest technologies.
The Solution
Misys Enterprise Banking is an approach that mixes business analysis, process review and a technology foundation, is written in Java and uses J2EE standards and web services for integration. In direct contrast with monolithic systems, the system’s component architecture and integration technologies ensure that projects can be phased, meeting business needs as they arise, reducing project risk and delivering rapid return on investment.
The system’s Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) means that standard products are delivered with maximum efficiency, while new capabilities can be added without time-consuming and costly code development. By managing the complex inter-relationships between disparate customer information sources, the system enables the bank to understand not only the customer, but also their relationship with partners, family, employers etc.
Business processes are the intellectual property of any organisation, and that’s why the system is designed so that the common aspects, for example basic products and data management are standardised, while the customer facing aspects, for example combination products and decision making strategies can be tailored to meet the needs of the bank through business processes. Products and services, designed in the centre are made available to customers through the most appropriate route to market.
More Than Software
At Misys, we realise that projects to change core banking systems are about more than the new functionality provided by the software, and that's why we have a complete set of supporting services to help you maximise your return on investment.
From modelling the financial benefits and costs savings at the very beginning of the project and offering consultancy during the early planning stages of the project, right through to training, implementation, project management and ongoing support, we have the services you need.
Enterprises Of All Sizes
The word Enterprise has often been associated with very large organisations, for example Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are most often used to support the operations of very large companies. In many parts of the world, however, the term SME is used to refer to small-to-medium-sized enterprises, and in this context Enterprise Banking is applicable to enterprises of all shapes and sizes. However as the needs of global providers are different from those of local providers or niche players, hence the systems needed are also different.
Some times the difference in needs results in clear-cut decisions. For example the very largest banks have often chosen mainframe based solutions. However, most differences are more subtle and often it comes down to a choice between the things that are “really important” and the things that are “absolutely vital”.
