Banking On Technology

While companies such as TCS and Infosys have entered the increasingly technology-oriented and technology-dependent banking industry through the productisation mode, Wipro Infotech is taking a different route-technology.

Wipro, which is among the first companies in India to enter the global banking arena with its new technology architecture, has today restructured its business focus in the banking segment. The company is building its domain expertise in building secure technology architecture to web enable banks in a big way. The company has identified four focus areas in the banking segment. These are: Banking, Euro Monetary Union, Insurance and Securities (stock exchanges and investment firms).

Treading the untrodden





Wipro decided against the product methodology, looking at others experience in the banking segment. "For any product, especially in an application segment like banking we need to have the full functional knowledge and analysis of the business issues of that country. The entry should always be a solution for a business problem or a leading-edge technology solution with a new business revenue opportunity," explains Ramakanth Desai, Department Head (Technical) at the Wipro Electronic Commerce and Financial Solutions division. "The offshoot of services and solutions will see productisation for Wipro," he adds. It is understood that the company is working toward building products in the retail banking segment and trade bill finance segments.

"Our efforts are toward building domain and technical expertise to position ourselves as consultants in the banking industry, particularly in the US, Europe and Japan," says Desai. This approach has paid dividends for the company, which clocked in a revenue of $14 million from the banking and financial services during the fiscal 1997-98. And the company is targeting a revenue of $16 million this year.

A promising performance





Some of the projects completed by Wipro in building up new technology architectures for banks have established the company's position as a consultant in the worldwide banking industry. For instance, the company designed the architecture for addressing web and distributed-objects based credit card processing for one of its clients. Another of its projects involved designing technology architecture for an online banking, bill presentation and clearing solutions. The company has also to its credit several projects involving secure networking and migration to new platforms. The client list includes big names like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Patnam Investments, American Express and JP Morgan.

Wipro has identified call center oriented banking as a niche segment to capture. The call center concept is that all institutions are moving to a consumer-oriented approach in providing services. While Infosys is toying with the idea of virtual banking through its Banking Concept Center in Bangalore, to make a mark in the domestic and international market, Wipro's strategy is to get to the world market and standardize solutions. Not to mention the smaller players like Pentafour, which is targeting its banking products like PentaBank and PentaLife in the Indian market and neighboring countries.

The stiff competition from companies, both within and outside the country has, made the company formulate a two-way strategy to move up the value chain that is entering the traditional services arena and offering consultancy services. "The idea is to look at value and volume for the business," says Desai. One such opportunity is the Open Financial Exchange (OFE) for which the company is talking to several banks. "Once the OFE is built we would standardize it and offer to other customers," adds Desai. OFE is an emerging standard for financial data exchange. This standard will be used for integrating financial packages and personal finance packages with institutional services.

With the help of these measures, the company expects to earn a revenue break-up of 40% each in banking and securities, with the Euro currency opportunity and insurance adding to the remaining 20%. And yet this is only a tip of the iceberg. A huge potential lies ahead, with foreign banks spending close to 20% of their revenues on IT, compared to the estimated 7% spent by the Indian banks. And, the technology approach and the rightsizing of the business opportunities in the global banking industry is giving Wipro an edge over the other companies.

AKILA S,





in Bangalore.

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