Babu Nair interviews Vikram Aligh, Head of Commercial Business for North America at FIS, about transitioning strategies and transformative trends shaping the future of financial services:
Babu Nair: Amid standards transformation in banks, what challenges emerge during the extensive process, especially in collaboration with banks, and how are they addressed and accelerated?
Vikram Aligh: Banks grapple with legacy platforms ill-suited to ISO standards, prompting holistic transformations. Successful initiatives transcend mere compliance, reshaping internal operations and optimizing data usage. This approach enhances due diligence, reporting, and customer services, facilitating capabilities like state reconciliation on receivables.
What challenges arise in modernizing legacy systems for new-age data, including difficulties, time constraints, and specific obstacles faced?
Banking transformations, including ISO 222 adoption, involve unique journeys. ISO standards, especially ISO 222, present challenges in transforming legacy systems. Thorough training of customers and staff is vital for success. ISO 222 facilitates streamlined processes in transaction banking, enabling automated reconciliation.
How can organizations enhance the transition to new technologies, improving both employee and customer experiences?
Banks in transformation seek external guidance from consulting partners to evaluate current ecosystems and navigate future changes. This involves compliance with ISO standards, leveraging APIs for enhanced customer access, and addressing gaps in capabilities. The adoption of RTP and FedNow in North America necessitates new functionality, prompting banks to embrace new systems.
How are banks enhancing real-time payment experiences for customers, considering the shift to real-time payments and customer familiarity?
Banks are adapting to meet the expectations of customers familiar with real-time payments, leveraging payment rails like RTP and FedNow. This includes enhancing client-facing channels for real-time payment origination and collaborating with partners to create overlays, catering to consumers, small businesses, and corporates.
What key trends are banks focusing on to customize pricing and make it more appealing to customers?
Banks are shifting from traditional transaction-based and product-specific pricing models to a more holistic approach, evaluating the total value of customer relationships. This transformation considers factors such as average surplus balances to offset transaction fees for corporate clients.
Do you have any solutions in this area to the customer or third party or partner solutions there?
We provide financial institutions with solutions for comprehensive revenue strategies, including product pricing, bundling, relationship-based pricing, and holistic account analysis. Our commitment involves ongoing expansion, leveraging advanced functional capabilities and technological advances in finance.
Are you witnessing a significant role for both the technology and business sides?
Success in initiatives demands a symbiotic relationship between business and technology, with a compelling business case driving investment into technology and operations executing the ‘how’ against the ‘what’ outlined by the business.
What is the role of the consultants? How long is the transition process for most of this trade, finance or cash management?
Consultants offer a valuable external perspective to banks, bringing insights on innovations, operational improvements, and market potential. Their roadmap for transformation emphasizes change management, process re-engineering, and comprehensive training.
Do you primarily collaborate with top consultants in this area, or do you work directly?
Our organization embraces diverse collaboration models, working directly with financial institutions or partnering with consultants for comprehensive transformations. Tailoring our approach, we prioritize client success, ensuring flexibility and client-centricity.
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