Financial news

The financial industry, historically characterised by tradition and stability, is undergoing a profound transformation in response to the relentless march of technology and evolving customer expectations. Confronted with this dynamic landscape, traditional banks find themselves at a crossroads.

They must modernise their core systems to remain competitive in the digital age while managing operational risks and costs effectively.

In the past, traditional banking institutions faced a challenging decision: either maintain their existing infrastructure or undertake the costly and disruptive journey of total system replacement. However, today’s core banking technology offers a more nuanced perspective.

Banks are increasingly embracing the concept of progressive core renovation and modernisation, allowing them to upgrade incrementally and adapt to contemporary needs.

Jason Gandy, senior vice president of financial services consulting at NTT DATA Services, underscores this shift in thinking: “Deciding to modernise a bank’s core is no longer a binary choice of either doing nothing or opting for a total replacement.

“The landscape of core banking technology has witnessed massive advances, presenting a variety of tailored solutions that empower the banking industry to become significantly more flexible and agile in their operations, enabling banks to adapt and thrive in today’s dynamic financial landscape.”

Modernising banking

NTT DATA Services, a global IT consultancy firm, is embracing this transformative wave. It has unveiled a suite of accelerators designed to empower banks on their modernisation journey. This suite comprises various tools, each serving a specific purpose in the modernisation process.

Among these tools, the Transformation Manager catalogues and evaluates existing application assets, streamlining the modernisation roadmap. This eliminates manual efforts and accelerates project timelines, facilitating strategic roadmap creation. It enables banks to ‘re-architect” and harmonise programming languages, data structures, BPM, workflows, and business rules into preferred end formats.

UniKix, another key component, offers a mainframe application re-hosting solution. It aids in migrating mainframe and secondary applications to a virtualised data centre or public cloud platform. This migration results in significant cost savings and preserves all business logic. UniKix also mitigates technology stack risks by cataloguing and evaluating applications, providing real-time application health data.

The Data Cataloguer analyses source objects required for data migration, such as databases, tables, keys, and more. It migrates these analysed objects from source to target, ensuring a smooth transition, even to platforms like Snowflake.

The Data Validator plays a crucial role by validating migrated data using sampling capabilities. It utilises configurable hash functions to detect differences and unmatched records, storing them for quick redressal in platforms like Snowflake.

Embracing cloud technology

The accelerators also focus on cloud adoption. NuCAF, for instance, provides a framework that includes repeatable, measurable, and industry-standardised processes. It assists clients in adopting hyperscale clouds effectively.

CloudART, another tool in the suite, helps organisations identify the best-fit applications for the cloud. It employs automated tools for scanning code, cloud deployment, and application management. CloudART addresses aspects of a cloud transformation, including remediation, migration, and cloud-native application development.

Navigating open banking with Platea

In addition to these accelerators, Platea is making waves in the banking industry. This platform has already left a significant imprint in regions like Japan, Latin America, the UK, and the EU. Now, Platea is extending its reach to North America, offering banks the flexibility, scalability, and agility needed to navigate the transformative landscape.

Platea’s cloud-centric approach empowers banks to scale and adapt at their own pace, free from vendor lock-in. Operating on an event-driven, real-time processing model, Platea aligns seamlessly with banks’ priorities as they transition from legacy systems to the cloud. It allows banks to experiment, innovate, and stay competitive in response to the evolving fintech landscape.

NTT DATA has forged partnerships with new fintech companies to enhance Platea’s capabilities. This includes bolstering real-time payments, account aggregation, and ID verification features, significantly enhancing the digital onboarding experience. Prominent fintech partners for Platea include Jumio for ID verification, Mambu for its core banking platform, Volante for real-time payments and Akoya for account aggregation.

Kaoru Kumashiro, manager of global industries, global marketing and communications at NTT DATA Group Corporation, highlights the global nature of this transformation: “We first launched Platea Banking, our digital banking solution built on our deep industry expertise and extensive partner ecosystem, in Europe back in 2019.

“At that time, the market was driven by regulation, and we built a solution to meet that demand. Now, our next target market is the US, where the shift to open banking is driven mainly by market demand but also potentially by regulation in the future.”

As banks chart their course through the evolving landscape of finance, the choices they make today will determine their ability to thrive tomorrow.

“Banks and financial institutions are walking a tightrope between innovation demands and aging technology,” said Madhusudhan Magadi, managing director of financial services enterprise architecture in financial services consulting, NTT DATA Services.

“Our combined capabilities allow us to maximise financial and operational efficiencies to uniquely enhance customer experience while future-proofing client’s investments with innovative coreless banking solutions.”