FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY Delivering a competitive advantage in the digital era
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FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY Financial services companies operate in a highly volatile environment where market conditions can change rapidly and the stakes are often high. Within this dynamic context, banks, insurance providers and securities companies need to find ways to adapt and thrive, delight their customers, increase their market share, grow revenues and increase profitability while managing security issues and reining in costs. Over the years, NCS has been working closely with leading financial institutions to address these business challenges. We helped financial institutions to make inroads into the Internet age with solutions such as Internet Banking, e-Statements and SMS Gateways. More recently,
we worked with several financial services organisations on major digital transformation initiatives. We delivered a ground-breaking online transaction store that provided a leading regional bank with a single global view of customer and transactional data. We built award-winning mobile applications that have helped financial services organisations boost their engagement with an increasingly digital-savvy audience. We also worked with a leading local bank to enable its payment engines for FAST (Fast And Secure Transfers) transactions and offer Business Continuity Management solutions that combine our strengths in disaster recovery with business continuity consultancy and planning.
Solutions for the insurance sector Insurance is another fast-moving sector characterised by frequent product launches and constant changes in rates. To help companies operate in this dynamic environment, we developed Sales Quotation and Wealth Management systems to help them keep pace with product changes and better understand the needs of their clients. We have also helped companies make better use of technology to address governance and regulatory compliance issues.
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Pushing e-frontiers Internet banking may be par for the course today but back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when it was still relatively unexplored territory, NCS worked closely with our customers to push the e-frontiers in this space. We implemented an Internet banking system for a leading bank in Singapore, paving the way for its customers to transact anytime anywhere, so long as they were connected to the Internet. Our involvement encompassed requirements study, application design, development and the implementation of the system including the interfaces to the bank’s back-end systems. We also worked with a leading United States bank to introduce an Internetbased distribution system for e-statements such as account statements, cash balance reports and updates on foreign exchange and money market transactions movement. Based on Java technology, the streamlined and secure end-to-end system was rolled out across some 22 countries in the Asia Pacific region, allowing the bank’s customers to check their statements anytime, anywhere in the world. Another major development during that era was the start of the mobile revolution. With this, SMS or Short Message Service emerged as an important channel for commercial entities to deliver customised services literally into the hands of their clients. To harness the full potential of SMS, NCS introduced a managed SMS gateway service that enabled a leading global bank to connect with the three major telcos in Singapore as well as international mobile operators. This enabled the bank to reach out seamlessly to their clients regardless of their telecom service provider, or whether they were in Singapore or overseas. Through the SMS gateway, the bank was able to deliver notifications, promotions and other services to their clients’ mobile devices and also to complement their online services with mobile-based authentication and access controls.
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Delivering one view for more effective decision-making A single global view of customer and transactional data across product lines, across subsidiaries, and across multiple countries - this is the trump card that a leading regional bank has as it looks to expand its transaction business, which is an increasingly important contributor to its revenues. The ability to capture and present data from multiple sources in near real time enables the bank to make informed decisions quickly and be more proactive in responding to customer needs and competitive forces in the market. Powering this capability is the NCS Online Transaction Store (OTS), which is part of our BankConnect suite of transaction banking applications. BankConnect OTS aggregates reports and statistics from multiple source systems to improve reporting and decisionmaking, facilitate regulatory reporting and provide customers with the convenience of accessing their account statements online, in real time, regardless of the country they are in or the subsidiary they are banking with.
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Transforming enterprise outreach with awardwinning apps
Mobility is one of the key forces behind the digital transformation that is sweeping the financial services landscape. To position banks to take advantage of these developments, NCS developed award-winning mobile apps that have helped them to extend their reach and boost their engagement with an increasingly digital-savvy audience. For example, we worked with a leading local bank to develop an app that reaches out to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and helps them grow their network in Asia. The app provides SMEs with access to business expertise by allowing them to chat with business leaders, network with venture capitalists and benefit from the experience of their peers. We also worked with a leading credit card issuer to launch a mobile app for its cardholders in the Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa. The app helps enhance the company’s engagement with its cardholders and drive card usage by providing them with updates on the latest offerings and promotions across the region, tailored to their individual interests. It also offers useful travel tips and tools such as an ATM locator, quick access to emergency assistance, concierge numbers, Wi-Fi information, and also allows cardholders to share their travel experiences. At the 2015 Mob-Ex Award which celebrates mobile excellence across Southeast Asia, the two apps received recognition for Best Use of Social Platform (Gold) and Most Informative Use of Mobile (Silver) respectively.
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FAST enabler To meet the growing demand for faster funds transfer, a service called FAST (Fast And Secure Transfers) was introduced in March 2014, allowing customers to transfer SGD funds almost immediately between accounts of participating banks in Singapore. In the lead-up to the launch, NCS worked with a leading local bank to enable its payment engines for the new electronic funds transfer service. Available 24x7, FAST allows the bank’s customers to transfer money almost instantaneously to accounts held with other banks, instead of the three days that it usually took previously. The recipient will be able to find out the status of the transfer by accessing his bank account online or through a notification service offered by the participating bank.
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Delivering business continuity Business Continuity Management (BCM) is very important to businesses today, especially in a globalised economy where the fast pace of change and the intensity of competition leave very little margin for downtime. This is especially true for financial services institutions which have to comply with regulatory and audit requirements while adhering to high standards of service delivery. To address BCM challenges, we identify potential sources of business disruption and ensure effective response to safeguard the interests of major stakeholders and protect the company’s reputation.
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Embracing change in the insurance sector The insurance industry is a fast-moving one with the frequent launch of new products, constant changes in rates, and the need to cater to multiple distribution channels and multiple partner interface requirements. In 2002, a forward-looking insurer worked with NCS to develop a Sales Quotation System that would enable it to operate more effectively in this dynamic environment. Built to cater to change, the system enabled the insurer to create, add or remove products easily. It was also able to analyse the impact of new product launches or changes in rates using an automated regression-testing engine, allowing the company to respond quickly and effectively to the shifting demands of the market. The system also allowed the company’s financial advisers to select from the various products and provide in-depth analysis of each offering to their clients on the spot. In another project, we developed a wealth management system for a global insurance organisation to help its advisers better understand their clients’ needs in order to deliver sound financial advice and recommend the right insurance policies. With features such as client management, fact finding, financial analysis, health checking, benefit illustration, and policy creation, the advisers were able to gather relevant information from their clients, analyse the data, and serve them more effectively and efficiently.
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Delivering FAIR compliance One of the oldest and most established life insurance groups in Singapore is embracing technology in its continued drive to be the leading financial services provider in Asia. When the Monetary Authority of Singapore introduced the Financial Advisory Industry Review (FAIR) to raise standards of practice in the financial advisory (FA) industry, the group decided to deploy an automation solution to better align itself with the framework. FAIR calls for the implementation of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Framework to assess the performance of financial advisers. To comply with this, NCS worked closely with the group to provide a system for managing the nonquantitative aspects of its representatives’ performance. Previously, in order to do this, the insurer had to extract data from various IT systems such as the Financial Life Plan Review, Post Sales Survey and Client Service Recovery, and compile the information manually. In automating these operations, the system has enabled more effective review and monitoring of each representative’s performance. This has enhanced efficiency and productivity in managing the quality of the group’s distribution network and ensured compliance with the FAIR BSC framework.
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