There have been some much needed positives in the last couple of years from SAP core banking projects, including CBA, CMBC, Nationwide and Standard Bank. There was still a lot of work to be done and there were other projects where it was harder to see tangible progress. The slowdown in sales and retrenchment from the policy of chasing deals from all sizes of banks from all parts of the globe looked sensible. So too the fact that, despite the commitment to partners, SAP seems to have been taking more ownership of its projects and addressing its own resource weaknesses of late. Overall, its commitment to the banking market with its own applications looks clear. SAP could have given up or taken an acquisition route instead but it is doggedly persevering with its goal of being a leading
player, in core banking and elsewhere, with its own product suite. With arch-rival, Oracle, bringing its own new core banking offering to the market (Oracle Banking Platform/OBP), there is the spectre of these two ERP heavyweights also becoming major competitors in high-end core banking. Things seem to be more mixed with some of the other applications and initiatives, including the relatively slow-moving FSN,
uptake of HANA (also seemingly slow moving, at least in financial services), and CRM. However, SAP often perseveres where it doesn’t initially succeed, so might get these into the mainstream in the end, as it appears to be doing with Deposits Management.
