When the going gets tough… the tough get tougher!
Being in the thick of core-banking and core-systems-led transformation for more than a decade, one has observed the changing landscape for banks across the world and the paradigm-shifts that have happened over this period as they gradually began to let go of their decades-old legacy environments and use the opportunity to completely transform themselves into the digital age. Those who have been the first-movers, have freed themselves off the shackles of their legacy core systems, and achieved what genuinely seemed impossible till then - launching new and innovative products in weeks and not months, and servicing their customers effectively with a single-view of the relationship, giving a unified experience across channels, whether self-service or assisted, and all this at levels of operational efficiency and cost which are different by an order of magnitude. In Europe, and closer home in the UK, the last 24 months have seen a paradigm shift of thinking in this direction and more and more banks are biting the bullet.
But the downward spiral of the financial services market in the last few months have made many quite jittery – IT costs and discretionary spend is being cut down drastically – so where does a full-blown core systems transformation program stand a chance? It does – and the real visionary banks will see this as the right opportunity and time. When the chips are down, and your competitors are focusing on survival, is the best time to invest in setting your house in order, and prepare yourself with the competitive edge, before the next upturn around the corner.
And that is what CFS is doing. As a conservative bank, CFS has weathered the slow-down a lot better than the other UK banks, and in fact, has posted at the end of 2008, a 70 percent rise in banking profits, a 65 percent increase (y-o-y) in current account customers and a 20 percent increase in customer deposit balances. It has boldly decided to move ahead with one of the biggest and ambitious business transformation programs in its history – the Enterprise Platform will deliver to CFS a head start, which will give it an early-mover advantage in the UK market of tomorrow. If the Britannia merger goes through, the combined super-mutual with 9 million customers and £70 billion in assets can fully leverage the potential of the Finacle-based Enterprise Platform. And if it then exploits the footprint of the Co-op group’s 4500+ outlets in the UK and the Internet and mobile channels …. It can significantly shake up the UK market-place.
And I’m sure CFS will... because there’s a way…
