10 Outstanding Asia/Pacific Financial Services Firms in use of IT

Leading independent research and advisory firm Financial Insights, an IDC company, recently announced that ANZ Bank; Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad; HSBC (Bangladesh); HSBC Direct, Taiwan; Kotak Mahindra Bank; Maybank Berhad; Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation; Standard Chartered Bank; Taishin Bank; and, The Siam Commercial Bank PCL are the ten winners of the 2009 Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA). Held in conjunction with the Asian Financial Services (AFS) Congress which took placed on February 26 and 27 in Singapore, the FIIA 2009, in its fourth consecutive year, paid tribute to the most innovative use of information technology in day-to-day business operations by Asia/Pacific financial institutions.

This year, over 100 banks and insurers across the Asia/Pacific region submitted their entries for the awards. Submissions were evaluated by the FIIA assessment panel based on an initiative’s responsiveness to market needs, effectiveness of implementation, market take-up and sustainability. The written entries of the FIIA winners also clearly articulated:

• The initiative’s ability to provide an organisation with a strong competitive differentiator
  
• The initiative’s overall strategic intent
  
• The initiative’s ability to garner support and commitment from senior executives through to project management and business users
  
• The role that technology played as an enabler of business operations
  
• Compelling business benefits from the initiative
  

The winners showed that applying technology innovation in business strategies, product development, and IT investment, can bring about not only benefits such as operational efficiency and infrastructure optimisation, but it is also key to increasing market share, securing fresh revenue streams, and building overall competitive differentiation in a crisis environment.

“The Financial Insights Innovation Awards showcased the achievements of financial institutions in applying innovation and best practices to realise business goals,” notes Cyrus Daruwala, Managing Director of Financial Insights Asia/Pacific. “It also showed that the financial services industry in Asia/Pacific is at the forefront of leveraging technology as a true business enabler.”

Here is a summary of the ten winners, arranged in alphabetical order, of the 2009 FIIA:
ANZ Bank for Innovation in Account Aggregation
ANZ Bank is recognised for ANZ MoneyManager, a free internet-based platform for the integration of an individual’s financial data from different sources such as various bank accounts, credit cards, credit union accounts, online share portfolios, and rewards programmes. This project is a credible Web 2.0 initiative that is seen to support the requirements of a new generation of customers who are more hands-on in managing their personal finances.

Partner Acknowledgement: Yodlee
Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad for Innovation in Enterprise Transformation
Alliance Bank’s strategy of applying technology excellence to create sustainable business value has led the bank to deploy an impressive enterprise-wide transformation ranging from enterprise architecture to risk management. This comprehensive initiative saw an effective collaboration between Alliance Bank and its technology partners in successfully positioning the bank’s IT organization to support its strategic goals.

Partner Acknowledgement: IBM and Tivoli
HSBC (Bangladesh) for Product Innovation (Personal Installment Loan)
Awarded for effectively developing processes that support the growth of HSBC (Bangladesh)’s Personal Installment Loan product while keeping to quality in terms of loan disbursement volumes and high risk management standards. The processes helped the bank see improved market take-up of the product with lean staff resources.

HSBC Direct, Taiwan for Innovation in Online Insurance
HSBC Direct, Taiwan launched “Life Insurance Online” by integrating systems in HSBC Direct Taiwan, HSBC Life Limited, and HSBC Insurance Broker. The service offers a seamless online experience, with benefits ranging from real-time quotes on insurance policies, auto-documentation fill-up, direct payment of premiums via the HSBC Direct high-yield savings account, and integrated customer account management.

Kotak Mahindra Bank for Innovation in Enterprise Security Management
Kotak Mahindra Bank is proving itself to be an organisation committed to inculcate security in all forms, with the goal to prepare itself for effective information security management. Through a holistic, continuous and integrated enterprise security strategy involving close engagement with its information security partner, the bank’s security function has become remarkably operations-focused and results-oriented.

Partner Acknowledgement: Paladion Networks
Maybank Berhad for Innovation in Analytical CRM
Maybank brought to market an analytical CRM System that is enabling the bank to analyse, understand, predict and influence customer behaviour throughout the customer life-cycle. The system put in place an effective data foundation for advanced data mining and event-based marketing capabilities, and developed best practices to integrate these new capabilities with the overall customer strategy of the bank.

Partner Acknowledgement: Teradata
Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation for Innovation in Mobile Banking
OCBC Bank has successfully deployed a one-stop mobile bank with full service offerings to its customers. The bank has been able to develop an impressive mobile banking solution with a revenue-generating model driving significant growth in user-adoption and transaction volumes.

Partner Acknowledgement: Silverlake, IBM, eBworx and Orange Gum
Standard Chartered Bank for Innovation in Consumer Origination
Standard Chartered Bank is awarded for its “Global Lending Origination System”, a scalable workflow solution for credit cards and personal loans which has been designed to replace multiple front-end country lending systems by consolidating consumer origination activity. Besides streamlined workflow and process automation, this initiative is also positioned to reduce operational risks for the bank. Subject to business requirements, there is also the possibility of extending the system to cover mortgage loans and deposit accounts.

Taishin Bank for Innovation in Credit Risk Management
Recognised for its credit/origination risk management system which incorporates a holistic and systematic approach to credit risk management across the key elements of people, processes and tools, Taishin Bank has demonstrated impressive results in improving the quality of its loans portfolio.

Partner Acknowledgement: Fair Isaac

The Siam Commercial Bank PCL for Innovation in Trade Finance
Awarded for Trade Superhighway, the first host-to-host Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation in Thailand, which reiterates Siam Commercial Bank’s leading position in international trade banking products. The initiative is especially recognised for clearly demonstrating client benefits such as reduced turn-around time, greater convenience and the avoidance of process redundancy. Partner Acknowledgement: SAP Thailand and TNIS
In addition to these winners, Financial Insights Asia/Pacific would also like to give special mention to:

HSBC for its Business Direct initiative
HSBC Business Direct is aimed at providing a comprehensive, cost-effective cross-channel proposition for SME customers. Besides pioneering the provision of mobile banking services to SMEs in Hong Kong, the platform features a multi-currency integrated account, online FX and IPO application services, as well as the flexibility for mainland China customers to verify their identity with staff in Hong Kong via video-conferencing.

Security Bank Corporation for its Transaction Banking initiative
Security Bank Corporation Philippines is recognised for its fully customised, Internet-based electronic invoice presentment and payment system, termed “Billing/Invoice Presentment and Payment System (BIPPS)”. BIPPS allows merchants to electronically post their Account Receivables (A/R) or open billings/invoices online, and quickly settle transactions with customers, thereby greatly improving settlement cycles and creating a more effective and efficient order-, payment-, and delivery process.

Tisco Bank (Thailand) for its Tisco Purse product
Tisco Purse, a card product, has proven that payments provides an opportunity to gain customers, especially for new institutions. The initiative is also recognised for facilitating customer transactions in a fast and efficient manner.

Union Bank of India for its Core Banking initiative
Union Bank of India is one of the first large Indian public banks to complete 100% deployment of its core banking solution. The core banking deployment was impressive with the bank migrating 1500 branches to its core banking solution within a six month time frame.

YES Bank Limited for its Direct Banking initiative
YES Bank receives special mention for its YES TOUCH Phone Banking Center. This is India’s first speech-recognition based contact center which integrates voice, email, chat and video, and offers customers a user-friendly self-service menu. Market take-up has been impressive with over 50% of all calls being closed through this self-service speech-enabled Phone Banking Center.
Partner Acknowledgement: CISCO and Nuance

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