Information Technology Resource for the Banking Industry

Your online resource on information technology solutions for banks and financial institutions. About IT trends, strategies and buyer's guide to banking technologies.

The competitive advantage of banks and financial institutions will rely heavily on the capability of technology to implement business processes, manage risks and provide excellent customer service.

Future Trends

Web services and grid computing are emerging IT trends to watch.

Radio frequency identification, or RFID, will help improve client services and reduce credit card fraud.

Cost is a concern when investing in IT hardware and software. As part of their cost strategy, banks are implementing business process outsourcing (e.g. outsourcing data centers).

Banking Technology Software & Solutions

Guide to banking software and top rated vendors.

Back Office	Banking Applications	Business Intelligence
Compliance	CRM	Document Management
E-Business Infrastructure	Enterprise Application Integration	Portfolio Management
Risk Management	Security	Trading Systems
Wealth Management	Web Services	Wireless

Current Issues Affecting the Banking Industry

Check 21 Act is designed to foster innovation in the payments system and to enhance its efficiency by reducing some of the legal impediments to check truncation.

Phishing or identity theft is an Internet fraud affecting electronic transaction security. It is a major concern for the banking and financial industry. The purpose of phishing is to get details of a person's financial account (e.g. credit card) which can then be used illegally.

Straight Through Processing (STP) enables banks to automate settlement activities which in turn improves operational efficiency and better manage trade related risks.

Global Banking

Philippine Banking Industry
The Philippine Banking Industry is regulated by the Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas (BSP). The BSP enjoys fiscal and administrative autonomy from the National Government in the pursuit of its mandated responsibilities.

Top 10 Global Banks
Top ten global banks based on total assets. Leading the list are Mizuho Financial Group, Citigroup, UBS, Credit Agricole Groupe, HSBC Holdings and Deutsche Bank.

The Banker Technology Awards 2004

Summary of award winning IT vendors for the banking industry as chosen by The Banker.

Category	Company	Solution
Innovation of the Year	Apama	Trading Strategy Management
	BT Syntegra	ITS.Netrix
	Intelligent Results	IR Analytics
Application of the Year	i-flex Solutions	FLEXCUBE core banking
	Infosys Technologies	Finacle corporate internet banking
ROI of the Year	Welcome Real Time	XLS
Networking Initiative of the Year	SMARTS	InCharge Application Services Manager
	Cisco Systems	MMVoIP
Outsourcing Project of the Year	EDS	HR process
Special Achievement	Immarsat	Regional BGAN satellite
Wholesale	Arcontech Real Time Systems	CityVision StarNet platform
Retail	NCR	EasyPoint 57i (ASAN)
Fraud Prevention	Searchspace	Intelligent Enterprise Framework
Payments Processing	LogicaCMG	National Payments System

Source: www.thebanker.com

Articles

The Cost of Downtime - In the banking and financial industry, systems must be available almost every second. Systems downtime will cost a bank plenty in lost revenues and damaged reputation.

Banking IT Challenges

Integration of globally distributed application systems

eBusiness platforms that can process high volumes of transactions

Consolidation of IT infrastructure into one location

IT Objectives

Application standards to reduce need for additional hardware and software

Shorten time to develop new applications

Improve ability to distribute information

Reduce cost of system support and maintenance

Systems that can perform under heavy network traffic

Strategies

Process improvement

Long term revenue growth

Competitive differentiation

Focus on the customer