The Hindu Business Line : ‘Banking sector offers huge scope for tech cos’

Hyderabad, Aug. 5 After a series of large transformational and infrastructure deals in the telecom sector such as Bharti and Vodafone, it is the turn of the banking sector to witness similar long-term deals, according to a senior IBM official.

With the telecom infrastructure becoming robust, the banking sector is looking at the next stage of growth.

Banking and financial services sector is the single largest sector in the world, and you will find India following suit, Mr Jyoti Satyanathan, Vice-President, Platform Business, IBM India, said.

Mr Satyanathan told Business Line banks started with branch computerisation and have since moved on to core banking.

This has meant consolidation of data to handle large information flow leading to building their own data centres.

TALENT CRUNCH

As services such as credit cards, insurance, various loan products are being explored to generate new business, banks now find that managing such large data centres is not easy.

It has become tough to find and retain specialised IT resources in a very competitive environment. Therefore, they are keen to outsource, he explained.

Keeping pace with rapid changes in technology is something banks would find difficult to handle internally.

Most banks prefer to focus on their core business and partner large systems integrators for their technology requirements including management of data centres.

As a service provider and tech partner for most of the top 50 banking companies globally, IBM helps banks in such business transformation, he said. “It won’t be long before banks go in for long-term arrangements where systems integrators will help in their business transformation, providing solutions and consultancy,” he said.

TRENDS

Referring to some business trends in India, Mr Satyanathan said that banks such as IDBI, ABN Amro, UBI, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Syndicate Bank have revamped their hardware and are innovating to meet large data flow.

“We believe that they will gradually move to what is being referred to as New Era Data Centre,” he said.

Such data centres help handle more tasks, consume less power, and host fewer machines. They have the capability to retrieve information as and when required, be it for compliance related issues or for business requirements, he said.

Most banks in India have new technology infrastructure. With the need to handle more data and also save on power they are again looking at MainFrames, in a bid to replace many machines, he said.

Alongside this, IBM has customised its servers for the banking and financial services sector.

Though no one size fits all, these, by and large, help smaller banks and financial solutions players to swiftly deploy them.

And depending upon requirements, they have the potential to scale up.

One of the key distinguishing feature is the combination of hardware and software coupled with consultancy services. Consultants from IBM help banks design new services capabilities, he said.

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