IMAGINE YOURSELF AS THE MANAGER OF A BANK WHERE AUTOMATION IS TO BE MADE . EXPLAIN THE STEPS YOU WILL TAKE TO DO IT.
Following steps I will take as a Bank Manager to do Automation in my Bank :
Today, money has evolved beyond physical form, and can be measured by
electronic pulses.
This electronic representation of money has made it easier to progressively increase the use of information technology for banking operations.
Introduction of automation will liberate my bank from a lot of paper-work.
* The first step would be to invite presentations from various technology Companies which specialises in Bank Automation to become our technology partner/ partners for setting up Automation in my Bank .
* The Second step would be to choose from these Companies the best technology partner/partners , who would provide cost effective and efficient Automation System to my Bank .
Following are all the cases of transactions that involve businesses and consumers who are either initiators or recipients, are done:
B2B transactions are large-value, and recurring transactions, while B2C are low-value, large-volume transactions. C2C transactions are low-value and low-volume. Worldwide, B2C transactions have come to the forefront due to high awareness levels and, as in any other new development, prudence has prevailed to test the waters with low-value transactions. However, the big one is B2B, which is waiting to explode. As a Bank Manager ,I need to capture all three streams.
I will have to create the field to achieve this, and achieve some first-level requirements such as:
• High levels of automation
• Centralised database management and processing
• Online connectivity across delivery channels
• Front-office and back-office integration
• Surveillance and security Systems
• Back-up systems
Following would be the steps taken for creating Automation in Bank :
Automation
Choosing a technology partner is very critical to achieve the efficiencies derived out of automation such as low-processing costs, better turnaround times, ability to handle excessive volumes, zero-error rates, better customer deliveries and so on.
Any bank embarking on such automation projects should ask the following
questions and try to get answers for better clarity :
Is automation for :
Reducing back-office load?
Improving staff working conditions?
Improving customer service?
Enhancing business levels?
Higher levels of automation decrease the load on the back-office in accounting, reconciliation and so on, and there by set free resources for enhancing business levels. While the evaluation has to be clearly all of the above, each bank will need to look inward at its priorities and accordingly select the right system being open-ended, Web-enabled and scalable with the right functionality is crucial.
As a Bank Manager my answers to all the above questions would be Yes ( positive) for all . Hence Accordingly , I would choose my Automation system which would provide all of the above 4 benefits to my Bank.
Centralised database management and processing
The Internet clearly throws historical debates on centralisation vs de-centrali
sation out of the window. We are now talking of the flow of information and
transactions through the clouds where a de-centralised environment is not conducive and hence there is a basic need to take the centralised route.This requires business process re-engineering (BPR) and creation of centralized back-offices with re-defined process-flows to/from branches. The basic organisational structure needs to undergo radical changes with more emphasis on empowerment at branches with centralised control.
Keeping above things in my mind , we would set up centralised processing, through a hub-and-spoke concept, with regional processing centres at the main metros, and a national processing centre at one of our center.
Online connectivity
There is a need to connect customers, front-offices, back-offices and other
external agencies and determine access levels on a need-based system (real-time, batch, dial-up and so on). This requires a huge infrastructure to run alongside, and hence has to be carefully thought through. With an increasing number of delivery channels such as branches, ATMs, phones, the Internet and so on, the estimations on volumes transacted through each of these channels play a vital part in the determination of bandwidth to ensure acceptable response times.
Through a combination of terrestrial lines, VSAT and ISDN, we will achieve total online connectivity at our Bank, where all branches and other channels we use access the centralised database.
Front- and back-office integration
Workflow requires to be defined clearly with the over-riding objective of cus-
tomer service, which should remain at the forefront. Processes have to be transparent, and one has to set up customer service standards, and service level agreements (SLAs) between various internal groups with strong audit systems for service quality.
Surveillance and security
All of the above will fall flat without online surveillance and security. Access-
control, authentication and encryption mechanisms will be built around each of the systems. Technology , including firewalls , private and public key
certifications and data encryption are available, and a judiciously blended selection will be put in place, up-front. It is not just enough to have the security set-up. Monitoring mechanisms to tackle the hacker menace and on-going surveillance is a must.
Back-up systems
At this stage, when all of the above are running, the bank becomes dependent on technology. What this means is that it cannot do away with these systems and it requires a near-100 per cent up-time for staying in business. Hence, the need to have adequate back-up systems and telecommunications, contingency procedures during times of system un-availability, disaster recovery sites and so on which we will put in place.
I will take all the above steps as a Bank Manager with the help of my banks technology partner(s) for setting up above Automation system for my Bank .
Apart from the above Automation System , I would choose other Automation systems available for better and efficient productivity .
Let us see another problem faced by my bank and how i will solve it using Automation systems:
Business Challenge :
My bank like many of other organization today face significant challenges on providing continuous availability of its services for the customers. In order to compete and provide differentiation from the competitors my bank need to provide a fully automated fail-over mechanism that eliminates outages as this represented a huge loss in both revenue and customer trust. Service
interruptions examples such as if ATM’s were not available, customers cannot withdraw money from their bank account or if a CPU was down, the affiliates are technically out of work. Without the automated fail-over my bank would continue to serve clients but there would be inherit risks by doing so without having a view of the customer’s financial situation.
Solution :
I as a Bank Manager would choose Automation system like Unicenter CA-OPS/MVS Event Management and Automation(CA-OPS/MVS) to provide the automation for fail-over processing.
CA-OPS/MVS integration with Unicenter Automation Point and Unicenter CA-Sysview will enable my bank to achieve continuous availability with a high available processing environment.
Benefit :
My Bank with this high available environment will be able to provide its customers with best in class serviceability. This environment will also remove processing risks that were created in past due to service interruptions like CPU failures.
Tangible Business Value ( with example ) :
My Bank for an example will use only 0.6% of its CPU resource with Automation system like CA-OPS/MVS after its implementation instead of 5% which is our resource consumption .
In particular with the CA-OPS/MVS Printer automation solution after its implementation in my bank , we will be able to optimise manpower.
Now without Automation system , we need to work with 4 very expensive printers and 3 groups of 9 people working manually 24h/24h on printing the generated outputs and reports, sorting documents, activating new jobs, etc. The whole process is very slow with printers being IDLE for long times. Each time a new job is started, the printers needed a warm-up of 30 seconds per document, Therefore the over 12.000 documents per day represent a huge non-productive time.
But with implementation of this Automation solution , we will be able to work with 2 printers and 2 groups of 4 people working from 6 to 19h in two shifts. We will be able to manage to print 400 pages continuously per minute; jobs will be launched in batches without interruption and manual intervention. Documents will be sorted automatically per destination and printer delays due to warm up will be dramatically reduced to the strict minimum.
Hence , a bank Manager who is looking for Bank Automation should choose the right Automation Solution available with various service providers only after carefully checking and testing the Automation systems to get optimum Results.
Similarly , as a Bank Manager I will also avail Automation systems from various Automation service providers for :
1) Mortgage payment processing which would give my bank speed, consistency and accuracy in processing payments, and reduce overhead costs. This wiil add up to customer benefit , associate benefit and share holder benefit .
Examples of some automated systems for Banks from a Service provider :
a) MaxMilion Payments application for Mortgage payment processing
b) Director, MSP, Passport, for core retail banking systems.
c) Enterprise Lending solutions such as Advanced Lending Solutions(ALS) Servicing Manager for processing retail lending accounts.
All of these are provided by Fidelity Solution’s a Automation Service provider which a Bank Manager like me can approach to get the Automation done.
2) Automation of Accounting, Loan, Finance, Exchange management, Treasury, Bond, Budget, Risk Management will be done by me for my bank by using Automation system from any service provider that is better than my Competitors and best for my bank for better efficiency and productivitiy.
Hence , I will take all the above steps as a Manager of a Bank to do Automation in my Bank.
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