As banks aim to overhaul their core banking platforms, integrating channels to create a seamless experience for customers across all access points emerged as a key priority in the year ahead, according to Asia’s financial services CIOs.
The omni-channel ‘holy grail’ is driving core transformation, which has become a key buzzword in the top CIO’s IT strategies.
Countries across Asia are at varying stages of the transformation process, with mature markets such as Singapore already ahead of the game.
David Gledhill, Managing Director, Group Executive and Head of Group Technology and Operations, DBS Singapore, said the ability to respond quickly to customers and new technologies among the fast pace of innovation will be a key area for success. In Singapore, the priority for DBS is to take a step further than just creating the omni-channel experience, but also making the experience interactive.
“As customers embrace a more digital lifestyle and the way they bank, we see the opportunity to leverage new technology to make the customer experience more interactive and intuitive, integrating banking solutions and products into their lives in a more meaningful way, and as a result, access large retail markets,” he said.
In Malaysia, RHB Bank is also undertaking a transformation process, according to Andy Tan, Group Chief Information Officer, with core banking outlined as a major initiative.
“Some of the major initiatives are core banking replacement, customer relationship management, digital banking and reorganising our operations both in business and IT for better efficiencies and effectiveness to operate as a regional powerhouse,” he said.
Priorities for Maybank, also in Malaysia, include raising productivity and driving higher efficiency across operations, but the main goal is customer centricity, according to Michael Foong, Group Chief Strategy Officer at Maybank.
“My immediate priorities are to help us achieve that goal, which includes achieving customer-centricity and enabling a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints,” he said.
Commonwealth Bank Indonesia is focused on achieving this through their transformation program which aims at enhancing core banking processes and systems, according to Johmar Gazo, Chief Information Officer, Commonwealth Bank Indonesia.
“This focuses on exposing more product and service offerings through more channels, and better structuring and analysing information to make faster and more insightful decisions. This will make it easier for our staff to serve customers, and for our customers to have access to a broader range of products and services whenever and wherever is convenient,” he said.
Still in Indonesia, Kanchan Nijasure, Chief Information Officer at Bank Danamon flagged customer communication and customer relationship management capabilities as well as risk management as key focus areas for the bank, but pointed to multi-channel integration as a key priority.
“We aim to enhance our value proposition to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and mass affluent customers by implementing multi-channel integration,” he said.
