Marcus Treacher of HSBC tells Dan Barnes about the rationale for its technology strategy and why banks that can think like treasurers and CFOs will beat the competition.The tech vision of Marcus Treacher, head of global transaction banking e-Strategy at HSBC, is firmly rooted in using the SWIFT network and the ‘value added’ services that can be provided to customers.
Vneshtorgbank is using its acquisition of Guta Bank to build up its retail services, planning more branches and aiming for a leading role in the mortgage market. By Brian Caplen.Russian state-owned Vneshtorgbank is pushing ahead on the retail front, aiming to claim an 8%-10% share of the market by 2010. During that period, total assets are expected to rise from $15bn to $35bn, including a forecast rise in mortgages from $150m to $2bn and in consumer lending from $300m to $3bn.
Applications can now be built from components that can be recycled and reused. Dan Barnes reports on how banks are reducing the need to design systems from scratch.It seems that every three letter abbreviation – or TLA – heralds the next big thing (or NBT) in information communications technology (or ICT). The latest push from technology providers’ marketing departments is service-oriented architecture (SOA).
To make the radical change from selling products to services, Jose Valino, CIO at Spanish savings bank Caixa Galicia, uses consultants wisely and co-operates with other banks on technology development. He tells Dan Barnes about bridging the gap between the business and IT departments and helping customers to understand the new systems.
Financial services institutions embraced customer knowledge technologies in the mid-1990s. Customer relationship management (CRM) is more than a technology. It is a very specific business strategy that seeks to identify customers individually and then craft sales and service strategies that are uniquely appropriate for each customer.
On the surface, the investment banking and technology markets have little in common but both have complex terminologies that few people outside the industry understand. In the investment community, you have things Greek, like NOSTRO, SPEs and so on. Technology has an equally complicated array of terminology and three that are worth being aware of are Wiki, SOA and XML.
The Royal Bank of Canada’s merging of its IT and operations departments for retail and wholesale business is already paying dividends, CIO Marty Lippert tells Dan Barnes.Marty Lippert’s recent decision to merge IT and operations departments from the retail and investment wholesale sides together was driven by the need to execute. The overarching strategy is what Mr Lippert, CIO at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), calls the “client first initiative”.
With central Europe already wrapped up, Erste Bank is having to look for ways to make its mature Czech and Polish markets more productive – and for new clientele, writes Robert Anderson in Prague.Erste Bank’s dramatic expansion drive from Austria into the rest of the old Hapsburg Empire has now reached maturity. Last year it became the largest financial provider in central Europe in terms of assets, after already leading in terms of customers.
As if migration to Swift’s new internet protocol platform, SwiftNet, was not challenging enough, banks now need to find out how to best use the new technology. Frances Maguire examines why the payments industry is beating the securities users to the new offerings.From the beginning of this year, Swift began levying fines on banks that had not fully migrated from the old Swift X.25 network to SwiftNet in time. However, while SwiftNet gives banks a new roadway, migration is only half the story.
HSBC has transformed its technology provision into a shared services company that sells IT to the group’s departments.The intention is to increase cost transparency and increase control over IT, Fergie Williams, head of technology services Europe,tells Dan Barnes.
Michael Imeson reports on The Banker’s briefing on business continuity management. HSBC has been struck with its share of disasters in the past two years. Its Istanbul HQ was bombed by Islamic fundamentalists in 2003, and operations in the Cayman Islands were suspended for days following Hurricane Ivan last September. There have been other less spectacular incidents too, but in most cases the bank’s business continuity management (BCM) plans worked.