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THE BIG INTERVIEW Partnerships: the new disruption
Oracle has been busy the last few months and recently launched a package of 1,500 ready-to-use APIs for payments, retail and corporate banking. We spoke to the man behind that push – Senior VP, Financial Services, Chet Kamat
Senior Editor Bill Boyle
C
het Kamat has vision, as you would expect of a man at the helm of one of banking’s tech powerhouses. Recently he has been busy launching Oracle Banking’s new range of APIs.
They provide banks with a huge prebuilt repository of more than 1,500 REST APIs, which are based on Oracle’s experience of servicing more than 600 banks across 140 countries over two decades. That is a rich background to have available for innovation. But Kamat is a man who thrives on learning new things, personally and professionally.
“The early mover advantage is critical for success for banks in the open banking era,” Kamat said when they launched the API package. “Oracle Banking APIs is designed to bring acceleration, and help banks gain competitive advantage in the market.”
I was interested in hearing how Oracle is finding the process of bank digitisation. How are the banks dealing with the tasks – are they grasping the nettle or looking upon the task as one to enjoy?
“Quite often, digitisation is envisaged primarily as a nice user interface, a mobile app or making banking services available online,” says Kamat. “These are actually just elements of digitisation or, to be more specific, of digital transformation. Digital transformation is a continuous journey of re-engineering a bank using digital technologies and networks to remove customer friction and improve customer experience and value. It involves questioning the status quo as to why should an outcome for a customer take days or even hours when it can be done instantly and then re-engineering the relevant channels, business processes, data requirements and supporting technologies across the enterprise to build a new customer experience and doing so better, faster and more efficiently.”
I wondered if many banks realised what the stakes were, and indeed what he thought the stakes were at this stage of the digitisation
process? “As the banking industry witnesses the rapid evolution of digital convergence and connectivity, coupled with the rise of several non-traditional entrants in the financial services space, digital transformation itself is no longer just ‘optional’ for a bank,” he says. “In fact, 85% of banks across the globe cite the implementation of a digital transformation program as a business priority for 2018.”
He adds: “More often than not however, digital transformation initiatives in the banking industry tend to take the easier path with an ad-hoc focus on selective elements of digital transformation. Many banks selectively upgrade the front office while maintaining a status quo on back-office processes and systems or vice versa, instead of adopting the more robust and effective enterprise-wide approach. Research from IDC reveals that 39% of banks have an emphasis on front office when it comes to digital transformation, and 20% have an emphasis on the back-office, while only 28% have an enterprise-wide focus on digital transformation.
“It is evident that while there are some banks that are grasping the nettle by adopting an enterprise-wide approach to digital transformation, there are many who are just not doing enough or not doing it effectively.”
Since that is obviously what is happening, what is it that marks out the digital front-runners? Kamat says: “Based on our extensive engagements with hundreds of banks around the world, we at Oracle can identify certain common threads which help banks become digital banking leaders. I can list them.
“Digital leaders almost always are centred on the customer and often have a maniacal focus on adding value to the customer and helping them derive the maximum gains and the most beneficial outcomes,” he adds.
www.ibsintelligence.com | © IBS Intelligence 2018
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