The 10 Most Prominent BFSI Solution Providers In 2018

®

www.insightssuccess.in SEPTEMBER 2018

Company of the month

Sushma Rajagopalan Managing Director & CEO

ITC Infotech

10 MOST

The

Prominent

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018 TECH-ADVANCEMENTS Inventive Technologies Streamlining the Banking Space

Essential Methodology The Importance of Location Intelligence in the BFSI Industry

Editorial

N

owadays, technology is virtually transforming every imaginable business landscape and the Indian banking sector is no exception. The once traditional and process-intensive banking sector is now undergoing rapid change through holistic transformation initiatives to retain their competitive edge by offering customers a truly intuitive and personalized digital banking experience.

Apart from this, the most significant factor of BFSI sector is managing the balance between technology and manual intervention, and how this integration will further revolutionize the industry for both businesses and consumers.

Bridging the Gap of Technology and Manual Intervention

With the banks aggressively adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain technologies and much more, the banking experience is all set to change to one that is personalized, simplified, quick, and convenient for everyone. With this support, the BFSI companies are now able to expand by introducing new products, leveraging technology, deploying innovative strategies and ramping up distribution networks.

The greater level of consumer awareness about various investment options have enlarged the potential of this sector for catering to the various level of society. On the other hand, particularly the deregulation has induced the banking sector to explore new business avenues. Further, a strong regulatory and compliance framework in creating an investment friendly environment is showing positive signs for the sector.

According to the independent research, the BFSI sector in India is estimated to reach a value of INR 81 trillion and is likely to become fifth largest in the world by year 2020 and third largest by year 2025. Further the private banks have adopted a strategy to get quality business in the retail segment. Since a conventional lending business was of no use, they have started exploring technology advancements to capture the business of customers in the urban and metropolitan centers. However, recently a well-established player in the banking area has started taking serious note of these developments.

In the near future, the banking ecosystem might look much different than today and can extend well beyond financial services. The banking organization of the future may leverage the vast amount of insight as it possesses to become central to a customer’s financial and non-financial digital ecosystem. It can also combine internal capabilities with external innovations to be a value aggregator, advice provider and access facilitator. Instead of a rear-view mirror perspective, it can even provide a consumer with a GPS view of their financial lives in the future.

Bhavithiran Murugan

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Shraddha Deshpande Managing Editor Shweta Priyadarshani Executive Editor

Bhavithiran Murugan

Co-Editors Ashwini Despande Anmol Preet Singh Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Shweta Shinde Picture Editor Alex Noel Art Editor Sapana Shinde Visualiser Savita Pandav Business Development Manager Akansha Garewal Marketing Manager Dhruv Apte Business Development Executives Shraddha Yadav, Rutuja Shendre, Joan Ranbhise Research Analyst David Circulation Manager Vivek Bangade Database Management Prashant Chevale Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

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Comapny of the Month 10 ENVIRO-INSIGHTS Plastics – The Effective and Feasible Ways of Usage and Disposal

CXO STANDPOINT 28 PRIVATE EQUITY INDUSTRY IN INDIA: Upsurge & Tribulations

40 TECHNOLOGY IMPACT ON MOBILE MONEY LENDING SEGMENTS AND ITS FUTURE

ARTICLES 16

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22

INFORMATIVE

TECH-ADVANCEMENTS

ESSENTIAL METHODOLOGY

The Emphasis of E-Learning in BFSI

Inventive Technologies Streamlining The Banki G Space

The Importance of Location Intelligence in the BFSI Industry

14 CAGRFUNDS: A FinTech Company Engaged in End-to-End Wealth Management

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26 MARWAH FINANCIAL SERVICES:

IBSFINTECH: Trusted IT Solution Partner for Treasury and Risk Management

A Specialized Independent Advisor in Financial Decision Making

32 NEPTUNE’S RUBIKON Delivering Mission Critical Universal Corebanking Systems

38 PROCESSWARE SYSTEMS: Fortifying the BFSI Space with its Ground-Breaking Solutions

42 TRACKWIZZ A Unique and Self –Enhancing Product Suite of TSS

10 Most Prominent

The

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018

Advancing Towards the Mission of India

W

ith increased internet usage and penetration, the Digital India initiative facilitating a proper payments infrastructure which can pave the way for a seamless digital economy. The government has outlined its vision in this regard and highlighted three core areas. This includes increased thrust on setting up the required infrastructure as a utility to each and every citizen, provision of services on demand and lastly, digital empowerment of the citizens. On the other hand to support the government in this mission, banking sectors are playing a crucial role by providing mission critical solutions to clientele for their short term and long term business and technological requirements by leveraging digital banking and mobile technologies.

To bring out the companies which are consistently engaged in helping clients on simplifying their personal finance requirements through adapting and implementing the highly capital intensive global technologies. We have come up with the edition, “The 10 Most Prominent BFSI Solution Providers In 2018.”

In this issue, we have encompassed ITC Infotech (Company of the Month) is a specialized global full service technology solutions provider, led by Business and Technology Consulting. With offices in eighteen countries and ten global development centers, ITC Infotech has established a proven track record of consistent value delivery to its clients. Today, the company is engaged with over 200 global clients, with 60+ fortune listed clients in its roster.

We have listed; CARG Funds, a financial planning company engaged in helping clients on simplifying their personal finance requirements. IBSFIN Tech, an award-winning FinTech software product company, specializing in innovative, integrated and comprehensive solution for Risk, Treasury and Trade Finance Management. Marwah Financial, a customer focused financial services firm offering personalized services in Advisory Broking, Wealth Management and Financial Planning. We have also enclosed Neptune Financial Software, an instrumental in creating glorious financial institutions by providing end-to-end financial services to over 60+ institutions across the globe. Processware Systems, the leading organization which provides software solutions to the BFSI sector. TSS Consultancy Pvt Ltd, a fast growing technology solutions provider for the financial industry by serving more than 150 institutions.

Apart from this, we have also covered various articles contributed by industry experts as, Technology Impact on Mobile Money Lending Segments and it’s Future by Rahul Sekar and Private Equity Industry in India: Upsurge & Tribulations by Prashant Kataria.

Our in-house editors have also written masterly-crafted articles on ‘Inventive Technologies Streamlining the Banking Space’, ‘The Importance of Location Intelligence in the BFSI Industry’ and ‘The Emphasis of ELearning in BFSI’.

So, let's start flipping through the pages of the magazine and experience something out-of-the-box.

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10 Most Prominent

The

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018

Company Name

Management

Brief

CAGR Funds cagrfunds.com

Vikash Agarwal, Shruti Agrawal & Siddharth Jain Co - founders

CAGRfunds is a financial planning company engaged in helping clients on simplifying their personal finance requirements.

ECS Fin Inc ecsfin.com

Jacob Aruldhas CEO

Evolvus Solutions evolvus.com

Balaji Jagannathan CEO

Evolvus is a multinational conglomerate and operates in the entire spectrum of Pre-Clinical Drug discovery and Clinical drug development.

IBSFIN Tech ibsfintech.com

C M Grover MD & CEO, T M Manjunath ED & CTO, S Sethuraman Director

IBSFINtech is an award-winning FinTech software product company, specializing in innovative, integrated and comprehensive solution for Risk, Treasury and Trade Finance Management.

Infina Insurance Broking Pvt. Ltd infinainsure.com

Ashish Jhamb Director & Chief Operating Officer

Infina has built up specialised industry and market knowledge enabling our team to advise on the most complex of insurance programmes.

ITC Infotech itcinfotech.com

Sushma Rajagopalan Managing Director & CEO

ITC Infotech is a specialized global full service technology solutions provider, led by Business and Technology Consulting.

Marwah Financial marwahfinancial.com

Abhishek Marwah Founder & CEO

Marwah Financial ® is a customer focused financial services firm offering personalized services in Advisory Broking, Wealth Management and Financial Planning.

Neptune Financial Software neptunesoftwaregroup.com

Thomas Waltair APAC Regional Head & Director

Neptune is an instrumental in creating glorious financial institutions by providing end-to-end financial services to over 60+ institutions across the globe.

Processware Systems processwaresystems.com

Guru Murthy Founder & CEO

Processware is the leading organization which provides software solutions to the BFSI sector.

TSS Consultancy Pvt Ltd tssconsultancy.com

Sagar Tanna & Sameer Tanna Founders

TSS Consultancy is a fast growing technology solutions provider for the financial industry by serving more than 150 institutions.

ECS Fin is an engineering enterprise that specializes in process optimization.

ITC Infotech Providing Domain led & Consulting Enabled Solutions

Sushma Rajagopalan Managing Director & Chief Executive O cer

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|SEPTEMBER 2018|

Company of the Month

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egardless of the industry, the ongoing wave of digital revolution has profoundly impacted many organizations, even as businesses seek to step up their game and stay ahead of the race.

As a specialized global full service technology solutions provider ITC Infotech enables its clients to begin their own digital transformation journey and subsequently improve topline growth, support new business models, optimize workforce, ensure compliance and mitigate risks. ITC Infotech is a fully-owned subsidiary of ITC Limited, one of India's foremost private sector companies and a diversified conglomerate. The company’s Digitaligence@work infuses technology with domain, data, design, and differentiated delivery to enhance experience and deliver greater efficiency.

With offices in eighteen countries and ten global development centers, ITC Infotech has established a proven track record of consistent value delivery to its clients. Today, the company is engaged with over 200 global clients, with 60+ fortune listed clients in its roster.

Services to Address Every Business Need ITC Infotech is powered by a growing portfolio of

|SEPTEMBER 2018|

specialized solutions addressing critical business challenges that its customers face. These solutions include Industry 4.0 solutions (PLM, IoT, and Embedded), Customer Value Management, Loyalty, Trade Marketing and Distribution, Supply Chain Optimization, Data Engineering and Analytics, Digital Agriculture and others. Specific to BFSI, the company's solution framework of Digitaligence has automation offerings, data accelerators, customer experience services, integration/API offerings and services and solutions oriented to new age technologies.

This framework supports the following business cases innovative customer onboarding for account opening using AR/VR technology, value driven and customer self- service based product/ pricing enabled by way of propensity and price elasticity models and finally the AI enabled cognitive customer service driven by trained models for contextual services. Its unique solutions, validated by customers, leverage best in class product platforms as well as in house developed IP that has matured by way of past client implementations.

ITC Infotech provides services across automation and specializes in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in order to deliver revolutionary technology to its clients.

The company is also venturing into advanced technology and experience led services, like AR, VR, and AI and has a full-fledged innovation lab to facilitate radical innovation and develop solutions in these areas.

ITC Infotech specializes in Data led services, with a focus on harnessing data – generated from sources across consumers, supply chains and business

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operations – to deliver insight-driven decisions that help create powerful, new and relevant experiences – a clear competitive advantage in today’s experiential economy.

Spread across more than 20 countries, its end-to-end data line of business helps global enterprises develop innovative and domain-centric Digitaligence, by turning data into actionable insights and leveraging advanced analytics to predict outcomes. The company’s next-gen innovations and industry specific solutions, augmented by partnerships with leading ISVs, have helped clients gain the right insights to outperform competitors.

It also has a Blockchain Centre of Excellence that is focused on working with the Blockchain Community across platforms, organizations, and industries. This helps clients understand and strategize the implementation of blockchain technologies, so they remain at the forefront of the digital transformation journey. ITC Infotech has also made its foray into integration led services by partnering with leading API solution providers like IBM, CA Technologies, MuleSoft, and TIBCO Mashery.

The Approach: Domain Led & Consulting Enabled ITC Infotech’s offerings are domain led and consulting enabled. With an exceptional partner strategy, the organization has established a vast partner ecosystem in order to be a true catalyst for digital transformation. The company acts as an innovation enabler and focuses its investments only in specific and targeted areas, thereby enabling its clients to access comprehensive future-ready solutions.

The organization adopts a distributed agile delivery methodology wherever applicable, in order to ensure effective execution. This helps the company overcome challenges related to distance, time zones, and cultural differences across projects.

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The Extraordinary Leader and Fervent Entrepreneur Sushma Rajagopalan is Managing Director and CEO of ITC Infotech.

She is also the member of the NASSCOM Executive Council NASSCOM®. An industry stalwart, Sushma has over 30 years of global leadership experience in the IT industry. She has led organizational transformations, headed strategy and corporate development, and has been responsible for several large deal acquisitions through planned strategic investments.

for achieving various milestones. Some of its prominent accolades and achievements include- adjudged as a Leader in 2018 Global Outsourcing 100 report, for the 12th consecutive year by IAOP, won the Best Employee Reward and Recognition Strategy at the Employee Engagement Leadership Converge 2018, won the Asia Pacific HRM Congress Awards 2016, won the Aecus Innovation Awards 2016 for providing an innovative customer experience solution to Holland & Barrett, UK’s leading health retailer, and various others.

Sushma is passionate about entrepreneurship and building a viable eco-system to promote open mindedness and an innovation culture.

She has actively identified, groomed, and mentored start-ups in the US and in India. With a transformational leadership style, Sushma leads from the front and helps team members realize their true potential by translating strategies into actions. She brings in tremendous clarity, passion, and confidence to her work and this is the reason Sushma has been honored with various accolades till date, for her excellent work and leadership including “Innovator in Technology” in 2013 and “Best Technology Woman Leader” in 2011.

ITC Infotech remains committed to staying highly relevant to clients, alliances and industry, the parent - ITC Ltd. and to its employees, in the digital world.

A Customer-Centric Viewpoint ITC Infotech helps its clients adapt to newer technologies and become a part of the digital revolution. The company’s services and solutions are designed keeping its customers at the nexus, thereby enabling the company to build a vast and reputed client network, who they’ve consistently helped in generating cost savings and productivity improvements. It has attracted and retained many prominent customers especially in the BFSI sector. Its BFSI partnerships include Finastra, Backbase, SunTec, UIPath to name a few.

Awards and Achievements Since its inception, ITC Infotech has been recognized and commemorated

Plans for Future Growth ITC Infotech remains committed to becoming highly relevant to clients, alliances and industry, the parent - ITC Ltd and to its employees, in the Digital World. The company’s strategy for growth is supported by four distinct pillars – achieving meaningful scale, future readiness, enhancing profitability, and building institutional capabilities.

Initiatives are underway to achieve the next level of growth and position ITC Infotech as a leader in niche areas and as an effective challenger. ITC Infotech is expanding its diverse workforce across the globe to effectively meet the objective of becoming a future-ready, domain solutions led company of scale.

Creating a culture of innovation has been a key focus area for the company.

And, being true to this spirit of innovation, the organization has devised multiple opportunities for employees to think laterally while also providing avenues for employees to pursue their passions.

With a variety of groundbreaking offerings, ITC Infotech is wellpositioned to enable its clients to scale new heights and achieve meaningful business outcomes.

|SEPTEMBER 2018|

Vikash Agarwal Co - founders

CAGRfunds: A FinTech Company Engaged in End-to-End Wealth Management

C

ulturally in India, investors need to have an extended financial plan. This adds a measure of complexity and needs to be factorized by the financial planners. In other words, markets that were focused on transaction or product selling in the past are now shifting their focus to become a one-stop solution provider.

Established in 2015, CAGRfunds is a financial planning company engaged in helping clients on simplifying their personal finance requirements. It utilizes the client relationship model to approach and understand each of its client's requirements. It also uncovers the behavioral subtleties that influence its financial decision-making. In addition, CAGRfunds’ client centric model helps the company to stay engaged with its customers throughout their financial planning journey, thus

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helping them to become better investors.

CAGRfunds was initially exploring the all-digital route of reaching out to people but realized pretty soon that its clients still need a way of direct communication. Therefore, CAGRfunds re-positioned itself to focus on aligning with the investor’s requirements which has created the trust among existing clients making referrals a strong growth channel.

A Team of Enthusiastic Individuals CAGRfunds has been founded by three partners named Vikash Agarwal, Shruti Agrawal and Siddharth Jain.

The Co-founders share a core finance background and are extremely passionate about driving financial independence.

Since the inception of the company, Vikash has been instrumental in setting the vision of the company and leads business development of the organization. He is an ardent follower of renowned personalities like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. On the other hand, Shruti brings intense interest and passion to the table with her experience in both strategy and finance. She leads marketing, innovation and technology. Siddharth spearheads the entire eastern India operations for the company. His client relationship skills have provided an unmatchable thrust to the organization.

A Proprietary Investment Platform CAGRfunds core offering is to make investing simple and convenient to execute. With this intent, the company has developed its proprietary investment platform which helps the |SEPTEMBER 2018|

10 Most Prominent

The

clients to transact with a click of a button. It offers free investment service accounts on their website to make the investing process to be accomplished in just fifteen seconds.

The company ventured into online paperless platform to offer integrated, innovative, yet easy-to-use features that empower the users to invest, redeem and track their portfolio at no transaction cost. Powered by a strong research team and a proprietary investing platform, CAGRfunds is able to analyze its customer’s investments in a structured manner, along with automating the easy investing process.

CAGRfunds strongly believes that personal finance is a space which is all about managing the client expectations and helping them to become a better investor.

However, it also believes that technology is a strong enabler to provide better services at a larger scale.

But “Even today less than two percent of the Indian population has access to financial savings and majority of them are un-aware about financial security” asserts the founders. Hence, CAGRfunds constantly focuses on making its platform better every day.

Its mission is to educate people and create awareness among them.

Consequently, the entire team is extremely passionate about driving financial literacy and democratizing investing. In addition, it provides investment solutions in mutual funds, NPS, PMS and AIF and also provides tax planning and ITR filing services.

Guiding the Budding Investors Being one of the few wealth management companies, it works on a continuous engagement basis. It strongly believes that unlike the popular notion, investing is neither |SEPTEMBER 2018|

“ “

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018

WE MAKE INVESTING ‘CONVENIENT’ FOR ALL about buy nor monitoring on a daily basis.

At CAGRfunds, the experts help young and early investors to begin their investments and guides & provide tools to manage their investment throughout their journey. This kind of engagement becomes very necessary especially in times of needs like change in government rules, taxation related updates, changes in fund management philosophy, changes in market valuations and so on.

Therefore, the experts help the budding investors to take the right financial decisions and ensure that they are providing innovative solutions to their client in order to stay ahead of the competition. The company’s fund selection mechanism is based on a very comprehensive and proprietary data driven algorithm, wherein it evaluates the funds on several quantitative metrics. Further, the company’s strong qualitative analysis makes its recommendations most suited to every single investor.

Additionally, they ensure to conduct annual review for their client’s investment portfolio and suggest changes, if warranted. They also help their clients maintain asset allocation as per their risk profile and do the rebalancing exercise annually. Today, they feel proud to have a retention rate

upwards of 99%.

Achievements Accomplished Within Short Span of Time In the span of almost three years of its existence, CAGRfunds has achieved several milestones. Firstly, the pilot of the company's business started as an offline platform with offices established in Ranchi and Mumbai which led to a kick start to the online platform in October, 2016.

Secondly, in the month of October 2017, CAGRfunds launched the Beta version to its Android App, where individuals can make paperless transactions and invest in mutual funds without any further documentation once their account is active. Finally, the month of April, 2018 was filled with New Launches which includes portfolio review, NPS and ITR filing and reached a user-base of close to 1000 users.

Tracking the Future Milestones CAGRfunds aims to be a full-fledged financial services company in the next five years. It is seeking to become a one stop solution for all financial needs of the segment that it’s catering to. In line with this, CAGRfunds is looking forward to expand its presence into insurance and lending in the near future.

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E-Learning in

THE EMPHASIS OF

BFSI T

here is a significant demand for the competent and knowledgeable employees in the BFSI sector.

FinTech keeps on introducing new and better schemes, which raises the question for the companies- how can they stay at the top of the game? Consequently, in order to remain at the top, these financial organizations confront unique challenges on regular basis to ensure that their operators receive the necessary training to remain relevant and efficient in the industry.

Multitude of Challenges The various challenges faced by the industry are: - Employees need to be well versed in the financial regulations in order to stay compliant.

- The employees need to be updated regularly on the software front.

- The information on the new product must be imparted regularly.

- Training and assessment of a large number of employees across branches and location need a lot of time and money - The individual learning capabilities vary across the organizations.

Regulatory Training Any kind of mistake, whether unintentional or a minor violation can lead to a hefty fine for the individual or the company at fault. This will also result in the customer dissatisfaction. Hence, the training of the relevant staff must function effectively in the financial institutions. E-learning brings the ideal solution for conveying the knowledge in

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BSFI regulations. Even the mundane information can be displayed in the interesting form. The simulation of the real-world scenarios can further help the employees in preserving the knowledge and in learning the application in various roles and regulations.

Product and Schemes Updating Banks and the financial institutions constantly adopt the

|SEPTEMBER 2018|

INFORMATIVE

Software and Information Security Every software gets updated with time and is essential for the attendants to keep themselves updated along with the software. E-learning eases up such scenarios and makes program training easy. The employees can learn the program via clear and comfortable steps before committing actual transactions and processes. Using the web, the employees can understand the importance of data security.

Consequences of data breaches can be studied effectively utilizing the computer-generated scenarios.

Avoiding Expenses Insurance firms and banks have several branches and offices in diverse locations. The traditional training to employees via lectures, textbooks, and exercise books can be expensive for the work hours and the time associated with it. Additionally, finding the trainer and accessing the impact of the training can also be time-consuming. E-learning can provide the same training to the same operators at the same time but at a different location. Online assessment through quizzes, tests, and their result can be collected instantly.

Furthermore, the learning can be translated into various languages or can be customized according to the diverse regions. Such features are more practical in providing education in language and culture of that particular region.

Individual Learning Capabilities Using E-learning, the staff can understand the corporate and financial courses at their own pace. They do not have to bother about their peer’s going ahead of them. Different teaching methods like a flowchart and interactive games can increase participation in learning. Self-accessed quizzes can further assist in evaluating their own education and at one’s own time. This technology also facilitates higher management and board members to get involved in the training sessions. By this, they can easily promote their company's vision for their employees.

new products or schemes to attract new clients and in retaining the old ones. Financial instruments and products are evolving and are forcing people to be imperative and update themselves. E-learning provides a great alternative in such situations. It can transform the traditional teaching methods, as pulling a multitude of employees from the working schedule can be impractical.

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The E-learning style in finance and banking courses suit the BSFI and corporate sector in many ways. This aids in strengthening the worker's skillsets and assures that the customers receive the utmost satisfaction. Availability of multitude of options alongside easy customizing nature of the computer-based education makes E-learning the obvious solutions in overcoming the challenges in an organization while exercising a sizable number of individuals with varied skills and backgrounds.

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C M Grover MD & CEO

T M Manjunath ED & CTO

S Sethuraman Director

IBSFINtech: Trusted IT Solution Partner for Treasury and Risk Management

A

n award-winning FinTech company, IBSFINtech is the market leader in Treasury Management Solution providers in India. The company specializes in innovative, integrated and comprehensive solution for Risk, Treasury and Trade Finance Management.

The company enjoys the benefits of strategic partnership with Thomson Reuters, which enables seamless integration of IBSFINtech’s TMS with market data feed from Thomson Reuters. This empowers the corporates using this solution with robust data and market analysis, comprehensive view of risk and access to FX liquidity.

Thereby playing a pivotal role in helping the corporates to mitigate operational risk, drive automation and optimize business efficiency.

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The Technopreneurs The company was established by ex-bankers named C M Grover (MD & CEO), T M Manjunath (ED & CTO), and S Sethuraman (Director), who have more than 100 years of combined experience in the financial services industry. Having hands on experience both in technology and domain, they identified niche gap in the market for a comprehensive & integrated solution to help the corporates manage and mitigate risks emanating from volatility in the financial markets. This need led to development of a Global and Industry Agnostic Treasury & Trade Finance management solution which now automates the Treasury operations of an organization and thereby plays pivotal role in managing & mitigating the attendant risks. Their enthusiasm and passion towards the company in order to achieve success is

what drives the employees to put their persistent efforts to take the company to newer heights.

An Award-Winning FinTech Product IBSFINtech has developed an awardwinning FinTech product which is innovative, integrated and a comprehensive solution. Its product portfolio comprises Innovative Treasury™5.1i with exclusive modules for Currency, Commodity, and Money Market and Innovative Trade Finance™ 5.1i with exclusive modules for Import-Export Management and Market Borrowings & Cash Management.

Innovative TreasuryTM5.1i supports Multi-Company, Multi-Location and Multi-Portfolio environment. It aids in managing exposure and offer tools to mitigate operational risks. It provides |SEPTEMBER 2018|

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018

real time reports/ dashboards for managing Open Positions vis-a-vis MTMs, Cash-flows and Collaterals.

The investment module facilitates endto-end management of mutual fund, fixed deposit, commercial paper, certificate of deposit, fixed maturity plan, government bonds, T-bills, Repo & Reverse Repo. The Commodity Module supports end-to-end trade & risk management in commodity trading process right from the order placement till maturity, hedging the trades, cancel or rollover of hedges.

Innovative Trade FinanceTM5.1i optimizes trade finance operations by implementation of Straight-ThruProcessing (STP) and multi-user control mechanisms to resolve accounting complexities, and monitor bank limits like availability vis-à-vis utilization. A cohesive and holistic treasury ecosystem of the company enables enterprises to improve their statutory compliance capabilities and also handle the complete workflow of transaction from initiation to settlement.

IBSFINtech’s Strategies to Overcome Obstacles At the early stage of its journey, the company has faced several key challenges which include lack of maturity of corporate treasury market in India, absence of fit-for solution for the corporate, fear of technology adoption and establishing the brand value.

To overcome these obstacles, it generated awareness among the decision makers about the benefits of automating the treasury operations.

Firstly, IBSFINtech created proven credentials for the company’s product in the industry. Secondly, it partnered with the right channel partners present in the similar space such as the big fours, forex advisory firms, and so on. |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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10 Most Prominent

The

DELIVERING INTEGRATED AND COMPREHENSIVE TREASURY MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS THAT OPTIMIZE THE BUSINESS EFFICIENCIES AND AUTOMATE END TO END TREASURY AND TRADE FINANCE OPERATIONS; WITH QUALITY SUPPORT AND COMPETITIVE EDGE IBSFINtech also participated in startup accelerators, events and awards in the FinTech domain to increase the visibility in the market. In addition, the company remained focused on enhancing the product capabilities to suit the evolving market needs.

Over the period, the proven credentials, exhaustive functionalities, comprehensiveness and seamless integration, helped build a considerable position for the company in the market.

Thereby, making the heads of large corporates turn, seeking comprehensive treasury management solution to automate its treasury & trade finance functions.

IBSFINtech’s products have been thoughtfully designed and developed, keeping in mind the gaps in the current TMS market. It is the perfect fit for the existing ecosystem so the organizations can smoothly accomplish their transition and leverage technology for automation. These products are also flexible, adaptable and easy to customize in order to fit the needs of the organization. Apart from this, these are also robust and scalable & easy to use due to the ease of implementation.

Also, the products have a short learning curve for less than five days along with an Intuitive Data Capture. It can be integrated with ERPs, existing

IT Infrastructure, and market data provider Thomson Reuters.

Awards and Achievements Being the market leader of Treasury Management Solutions in India, IBSFINtech solutions are leveraged by the top organizations which include Swiss Firm IMR Metallurgical Resources AG, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, JSW Steel, Olam Agro India Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra, Future Group, Sonalika (International Tractors Ltd), Himatsingka Seide Limited, Sai Life Sciences, IndoFil, HCL Corp Group, Times of India Group, and Snapdeal.

Additionally, the company has gained numerous awards which includes Adam Smith Awards Asia, 2017; Runners Up - FinTech Valley Start-up Challenge, 2017; Winner - Thomson Reuters FinTech Challenge 2016; Software Product of the Year 2015; Emerging IT Company of the Year 2015; and Solution Provider of the Year 2015.

Future Endeavors While talking to the technopreneurs about the future advancements of the company, C M Grover said “Our vision is to become the most trusted IT solution partner for Treasury and Risk Management globally across industries”.

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INVENTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

Streamlining the

BANKI G

Space

22

|SEPTEMBER 2018|

TECH-ADVANCEMENTS

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ince 1969, the banking industry has undergone tremendous changes. Banks have shattered their traditional functions and have been coming out with the new services to serve to the increasing needs of their customers. Enormous branch enlargement in the rural areas, utilization of savings and expansion of credit facilities to small-scale industrial and agricultural areas, other preferred sectors like export sector etc. have caused in widening the financial infrastructure and have transferred the major character of ‘class-banking’ into the ‘mass-banking’.

The recent trends are growing competition, reinforcing risk management systems, product branding, and emphasis on technology. Many safety features, such as advanced cryptography and biometrics, will effectively provide protection against the bank scams, and remote applications to perform banking operations without visiting a branch and this experience will prove to be more customer-friendly.

Blockchain Technology Blockchain technology is all ready to renovate the banking and financial services. It disperses the financial management from a central authority to a vast network of computers. In this technology, the financial transactions are fragmented into ‘blocks’ which are converted into the computer code which is then encrypted to achieve enhanced Cybersecurity. With its high potential to improve numerous facets of banking, there is no doubt that Blockchain will change the face of the banking industry.

Chatbots Various banks are now embracing AI (Artificial Intelligence) and deploying it across multiple business process functions whether it is front-end or back-end functions; which reduces the response time to the customers considerably. Chatbots and intelligent digital assistants with M2M (Machine-to-Machine) learning capabilities and selflearning concept are providing seamless customer interactions for many banks and players in the industry.

Upgraded ATMs The concept of ATM was incepted in the bank-tech system in 1967. Since then, it has been undergoing various up-gradations serving the banking customers with the efficient and unique services. Furthermore, the next astounding revolt of ATMs is going to involve contactless

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payments with which one can easily perform contactless ATM transactions with a smartphone. Latest inventions like biometric authentication are already executed in India and iris recognition technology is implemented in UAE’s National Bank ATMs. This way, the technologies are uplifting the overall bank security by preventing ATM hacks.

Mobile & Digital Banking The mobile and digital transformation in the banking space has just begun and its growth is explosive. Today, banks are investing largely in the digital banking technology, in which the customer can access the banking services through mobile, web, or digital platforms. According to a recent survey, around eighty-percent of banks indicated that these types of services show their top technology investments.

Partnerships Irrespective of the banks' high investment in technology, the fastest way to bring in the financial innovation is probably going to include strategic partnerships. The evolving companies that are undergoing a new wave of tech or social media platforms could create excellent partners for traditional banks which would boost the customer experience. Various marketing companies which involve in data analytics, is partnering with several financial institutions to influence secure purchase data r to tailor the marketing based on consumer’s use of the card.

Smart-Wearable Smart-watches will probably bring the booming future for the retail banking experience, according to a recent survey. For an instance, the banks could use the bluetooth beacons to push personal greetings to the customers’ smart-watches when they enter a banking location. Smart-glasses which is another unique wearable invented for the bank tellers would process customer banking information for the employee when they are busy performing other customer service tasks.

The trends in smart devices and consumer behavior are gearing the banking technology in the direction of convenience. The application of remote technologies will allow one to interact with the bank right from the palm of the hand. From dwelling over the email inbox to visiting a branch, one can expect to encounter a whole new transformed customer experience in the coming days.

The Rise of Non-Banking Organizations With the advancements in the technology, banks are anticipating faster delivery methods as well as transparent experience to the customers. Nevertheless, a huge portion of their resources is essentially devoted for dealing with the security, compliance, and other industry-specific requirements, with which the non-banks or financial service providers to embellish the banking industry. The non-banking companies can contribute a larger percentage of their assets to the enactment of financial technology; as they might bring in rapid innovations than the traditional banks and might attract tech-savvy customers in the process.

Transcendent Future Today, banking system is re-constructed with the information technology and it is obvious that the future of banking will offer more sophisticated services to its customers with the continuous product and process innovations. Implementation of strategies like strict prudential norms and higher capital standards, better risk management systems, reception of internationally accepted accounting practices and the increased disclosures as well as transparency will ensure the Indian Banking industry cope with other developed banking systems. The industry will further multiply its growth and complexity while being an important agent of the economic growth and combining different segments of the financial sector.

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|SEPTEMBER 2018|

Abhishek Marwah Founder and CEO

Marwah Financial Services: A Specialized Independent Advisor in Financial Decision Making

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aunched in 2008, Marwah Financial Services (MFS) is a customer focused financial services firm which offers personalized services. The company aims to be a trusted advisor for its clients personal on a platform of transparency and performance.

Driven by an entirely investor-centric approach, MFS is an appropriate mix of investment expertise, resource bandwidth and process orientation. It endeavors to simplify its investor’s journey to meet their financial goals, and also provides a good investment experience through innovation, consistency and sustained risk adjusted performance. At its core services, their customer needs and requirements separate them from other firms who believe in just selling financial

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products. Since the company follows a due diligence after knowing their customer return expectation and after understanding their risk, it blends different financial instruments for maximum wealth creation with minimal risk.

Thus, MFS is a one stop solution for all financial needs, be it advisory or services across different asset classes like Mutual Funds, Debt, Corporate & Government Bonds, Equity, Commodities, Portfolio Management Services (PMS), Real Estate Advisory and so on.

A Financial Strategist Abhishek Marwah is the Founder and CEO at Marwah Financial Services. Abhishek has done many

professional certifications in financial markets in equities, derivatives, commodities, financial advisory and more. He is also a certified professional financial advisor (CPFA), NSE certified market professional (NCMP) and AMFI certified mutual fund advisor.

During his graduation days, he noticed that the financial service was the sector prone to hard selling and miss-selling, a service which everyone needs from a service class employee to a high networth investor (HNI). Being from a middle class and having his father from a banking background, Abhishek immediately spot an opportunity to create a customer-focused and serviceoriented firm in the sector. Hence, he founded Marwah Financial in 2008 to offer affordable and authentic |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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investment advice. The industry which then set off late has started to move from a sales oriented to advisory oriented industry. Still now, the importance of financial planning cannot be ignored by the founder in these times of volatile markets and economic instability.

Specialised Services for Clientele MFS provides premium services from personal financial advisory, wealth management to financial planning. It is driven by the passion of touching the lives and not just managing client’s wealth. The company is capable enough to disengage their clients from the arduous task of managing their wealth.

The specialised services that MFS offers are Advisory Broking, Wealth Management, and Financial Planning.

Accordingly, it’s USP has been to ‘deliver’ more value than asked for, understand needs and risk in detail and then provides active portfolio management.

The benefit provided by the company to the clients is described as assured of trust, which is extremely important in a fiduciary relationship. The main idea of having an advisor is to understand that the customers can focus on their core work, job, and business by leaving the capital management to experts, who are carefully watching and scanning the dynamic investing environment.

Led to Prosperity The journey from developing the |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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WE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN THE THEORY OF STABLE GROWTH

interest in the financial markets to setting up the company has been very satisfying yet extremely challenging.

Whereas, any new business goes through a lot of challenges from arranging finances to having the right people on board in creating a niche and acceptance for the products and services. But in fact all these challenges and overcoming them is what makes the whole experience extremely satisfying. During this journey, MFS has formed important partnerships, created a qualified and competent team of people. It has also set up the required systems and procedure required for the company to make it customer centric and operationally efficient. The biggest challenge right now is to build a team of passionate and capable people to take the business on to the aggressive expansion path.

Today, MFS has over 1000 marquee clients with both domestic and NRI clients. Thereupon, the company delivers services primarily from Delhi/NCR. It also focuses on executive’s works in the corporate sector. Further, it values the importance of professional financial advice as proper financial planning is intertwined

with all lifetime family & personal goals.

Future Ahead From a humble beginning, MFS has been able to grow out clientele to a sizeable proportion. A lot of financial services and advisory firm started during the boom of 2007. However most of them did not survive the financial crisis, the company survived and grew through different business cycles. Additionally, it has a minimal customer turnover which speaks volume about the service clients, who have received from the company.

Nowadays, MFS is working towards two fronts, firstly to diversify the geographic base of the clients both nationally and internationally by setting up a branch in Dubai to tap the broader NRI market. Secondly, it is operating on providing the best techbased customer interface to their clients, by doing the relevant tie ups with different tech firms. http://marwahfinancial.com/

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Prashant Kataria Partner Lexygen

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|SEPTEMBER 2018|

CXO Standpoint

Private Equity Industry in India: Upsurge & Tribulations About the Author Prashant Kataria is a Partner at Lexygen, a Bangalore-headquartered law firm (with an office in Singapore) with a pan-Indian focus on providing services connected with M&As, Joint Ventures, general corporate commercial services, PE/VC and Project Finance. Apart from this, Prashant is an alumnus of the prestigious National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

He has over 15 years of legal transactional experience in the areas of venture capital, private equity, M&A, and infrastructure privatization projects. Over the course of his career, he has garnered significant experience in advising several corporates on diverse corporate-commercial matters, including employment/labor law, real estate leases, trademark licensing, telecom regulatory, and so on.

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oupled with the robust growth of the Indian economy, the Private Equity (“PE”) industry in India has been growing from strength to strength with total PE deals in 2017 valued at around USD 26.4 billion as opposed to USD 16.8 billion in 2016, an impressive increase of 57% (India Private Equity Report 2018 by Bain & Co).

Factors propelling this unprecedented growth are positive actions taken by the Government of India to address nonperforming assets in the economy, including the introduction and implementation of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (“Code”), taxation reforms through a unified Goods and Services Tax mechanism, stable GDP growth and continuance of policy reforms, especially by way of further easing of sectoral restrictions on foreign direct investment (“FDI”).

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Recent Trends in the PE Industry While PE investments have been made across the spectrum with much success, it is crucial to discuss a couple of trends witnessed over the course of last year in the PE industry, which are: (i) inclination amongst Indian promoters to dilute larger stakes for the right valuation, which wasn’t the case earlier, (ii) significant increase in largeticket deals like investments by Softbank in Paytm, KKR and CPP Investment Board in Bharti Infratel, GIC in DLF Cybercity, etc., (iii) successful large exits, especially in the banking, financial services, insurance, consumer tech, media and telecom sectors like Softbank, Accel, Naspers and Tiger Global from Flipkart, Qatar Foundation Endowment from Bharti Airtel and Fairfax from ICICI Lombard, (iv) focus on quality over quantity, as evidenced by the fact that the top 15 deals in 2017 accounted for almost half the total PE deal value as opposed to the top 15 deals in 2016 constituting merely 30% of the total PE deal value., (v) Booming consumer business, including consumer-tech, food and beverages, retail and related industry, (vi) Renewed thrust in manufacturing and industries, owing to the Government’s Make in India policy, (vii) Interest in the insurance and defence sectors, which are still not attracting adequate attention owing to a 49% sectoral cap (FDI in defence sector can technically go up to 100% under the government approval route (Requiring the prior approval of the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) or the relevant sectoral department/ministry of the Government of India), but the stringent and ambiguous conditions are a major roadblock), whereas foreign investors look for a controlling stake.

It is widely believed that these trends will continue in the near future, and for good reason, since these have been a major contributor to the robust growth in the PE industry and in building

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confidence amongst the investor community at large.

Regulatory Changes Affecting Foreign Funds It is pertinent to note that foreign funds have been instrumental in the blitz last year and hence their trepidations towards regulations governing foreign investments into India is quite understandable. The liberalisations introduced by the Government earlier this year to India’s FDI policy through the Press Note 1 of 2018 (“PN”) have been welcomed by the foreign investor community. A few significant changes brought about by this PN are: (I) Permitting 100% FDI under the automatic route (Not requiring the prior approval of the RBI or the relevant sectoral department/ministry of the Government of India) in Single Brand Retail Trading (“SBRT”), where only 49% was earlier permitted and that too under the government approval route. While most of the conditions attached to FDI in SBRT remain, some changes to the conditions have been announced, including permitting nonresident entities to conduct SBRT either directly or through a local entity, (ii) Permitting 100% FDI under the automatic route into an Indian company which is engaged only in the activity of investing in the capital of other Indian companies and in Core Investment Companies (Companies holding not less than 90% of their net assets in the form of investment in equity shares, preference shares, bonds, debentures, debt or loans in group companies and categorised as Non-Banking Financial Companies by the RBI). Earlier, such investments were allowed, but only through the government approval route. However, the automatic route is available only if the above activities are regulated by any financial sector regulator, (iii) Permitting issuance of shares against non-cash consideration for sectors allowing FDI under the

automatic route, subject to certain conditions. Under the erstwhile FDI policy, issue of equity shares against non-cash consideration involving pre-incorporation expenses and import of machinery was only permitted under the government approval route. These recent changes should give a fillip to FDI in these sectors.

Way Forward and Factors to be Guarded About While a lot of industry pundits and soothsayers portray a path ahead for the PE funds to be strewn with roses, one must also keep their ears to the ground and occasionally listen to naysayers as well to correctly ascertain ground realities and the prospective pitfalls and challenges. Below are a couple of factors and issues that I believe ought to be borne in mind while navigating the said path (i) While much euphoria has been created about the viability of distressed deals through the Code, and though it is a welcome move, PE funds ought to tread with caution as opportunities are exciting but fraught with regulatory uncertainties and much work is still needed to be done on this front, (ii) The dispute resolution system in India continues to be painfully slow. While it is important to have clearly drafted contracts, rational mechanisms for dispute resolution outside India shall continue to be relevant, (iii) Investors ought to be wary about tax related representations and warranties and indemnifications due to uncertainties surrounding their enforcement, and (iv) the recent implementation of the General Anti Avoidance Rules, which might make may PE fund houses re-visit their structures.

To sum-up, while the PE investors appear to be prudently optimistic about the Indian market, it is those investors who successfully pass the crucible of unique Indian business and regulatory challenges that shall be triumphant.

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Thomas Waltair APAC Regional Head & Director

Neptune’s Delivering Mission Critical Universal Corebanking Systems

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oday, the Indian banks have witnessed a radical change from conventional banking to convenience banking and they are poised for 'digital banking' at a rapid pace. Apart from this, the banks across the country have highly recognized the importance of enabling technologies in the banking sector to deal with the changing customer demands, improve operational efficiency, and enhance regulatory compliance.

In 2006, Neptune INDIA established the operation in Chennai which is a direct 100% subsidy of Neptune UK. The company has developed core banking products like Rubikon & Orbit-R, using these the customers can transfer money or pay for goods with just the push of a button. The group also has the ability to deliver strong business results reducing time-to-

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market and TCO by developing innovative solutions and improved productivity. With nearly two decades in BFSI sector, Neptune has the capability to deliver end-to-end solutions to over more than 85 financial services which include retail banking (including public sector banks), commercial banks, industrial banks and world largest microfinance clients across the continents. In addition, they are having their own regional group implementation offices in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria.

Apart from this, Neptune has kept a long-term committed relationship of more than ten years with the top most clients like Tanzania Postal Bank, Berhan International bank, and FINCA International.

Thomas Waltair is the APAC Regional Head & Director of Product Development at Neptune Software Group, India. As the first employee of Neptune India, he has meticulously formed a team of young, vibrant and dynamic people who know their craft well. The task of building a team from the scratch is difficult, but Waltair has performed exceedingly well in leading the team from difficult to positive times.

Waltair directly oversees universal core banking product engineering, global product support, presales and post implementation support and branding. He has handled all requests across the continent to build Gartner listed universal core banking products like ‘Rubikon & Orbit-R’. He brings in over 18 years of experience in product engineering, software lifecycle & core banking technology. |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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Waltair is amiable and easily approachable, who puts employee satisfaction at forefront that makes his ward to do all the wonder for a successful business. He believes in flat hierarchy and that’s how it works in Neptune India. He is an avid traveler and an active philanthropist, who always wants to contribute to the society he grew in.

An Innovative Technology The new technologies are constantly developing and banks can seamlessly adapt to changes will be in the best position to offer their clientele highquality customer experience.

Therefore, the traditional bank groups are looking for brand based or Tier-1 Company’s core-banking system. It is not too far to select the technically merit based and robust system but the banks need to evaluate the system properly before selecting it. Also, the banks must prepare for the next evolution of digital banking and meet customers’ shifting expectations.

In other words, transaction of money is definitely the prime function of a financial institution, but it is not the only function which a financial institution has to perform. The implementation of the new technology will not only make the transaction easier, it will make banking faster and safer in different ways.

Today, innovative technologies are changing the banking business and Rubikon's implementation of its latest version in banks has been beneficial to both the banks and its customers in terms of Fraud Reduction, KYC, Cheaper and Secure Payments, Trading Platforms and Loans & Credit.

Rubikon is a 100% Java interpreted which embraces JEE standards and web services for integration. The |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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WE ENDURE TO PROVIDE OUR CUSTOMERS WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, IMPECCABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE system is built with modular architecture. The use of JEE standardizes a number of different technologies to provide a robust platform for building distributed multitier enterprise banking applications.

Rubikon reacts to all real time transactions even in the Multicurrency Systems which reflect immediately in the GL codes. The end-of-day processing intended to run in parallel with the availability of the system.

Further, workflow engine is a part of Rubikon core banking system with no hidden charges or additional costs for new branch rollouts. Within minutes, it is possible to roll out or activate the new products and new business units without any help of technical team.

Benefitting the Clientele Over the years, Neptune Software Group has supported several micro finance clients with its flagship product which includes Berhan International and Tanzania Postal Bank. Firstly, Berhan International is a commercial bank in Ethiopia that started with just one branch in 2007 as now turn to run with almost more than 173 branches with the help of nine years solid relationship.

Secondly, Tanzania Postal Bank is one of the oldest public-sector savings bank in Tanzania. The bank was established in 1925 as Tanganyika

Postal Savings Bank that conducts banking services through the network of post offices. The bank aims to provide financial services to the common Tanzanian and promotes financial inclusion. Later on, TPB collaborated with Neptune Software Group in the year 2003 with the implementation of the Equinox legacy system. Recently, the bank migrated from the old Equinox to Rubikon. With nearly two decades of relationship, they have helped the bank grow substantially across all key financial parameters. Today, TPB provides banking services across various channels: mobile banking, e-banking, agency banking, tellers and more.

Future Expansion In the year 2008, Neptune implemented its first core business solution to the market with Rubikon.

But, within ten years, the group has achieved nearly 45 core-banking deployments across the continent and over 80% workforce is working in the company for more than seven years without attrition.

While talking to Waltair about the future advancement of the company, he said “We are planning to reach 100+ deployments, looking for an Indian client and implementing Neptune FinTech Digital Products 2.0”.

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The Importance of Location Intelligence

in the

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he banking, financial services, and insurance industry (BFSI) has evolved over the recent years alongside other sectors and now has become a commodity-driven sector. With the growth of competition, there are various available producers like loan and mortgages selling at their own unique selling point providing customers the different varieties to choose from. Furthermore, companies are listening and observing the customers and are designing products for their needs. Consequently, the digitization and virtualization have totally transformed the BFSI industry. Companies are compelled to ask specific questions regarding the industry. For example, how do you provide a service to the customers that are embracing the technological changes? How do the BFSI sectors can set its pace with these changes? Companies have taken actions and are in the middle of the various thought process, finding solutions to these questions. From industries point of view, the location intelligence attribute can bridge the gap between the physical and digital world.

The Banking Sector The giant corporations in the banking sector are using the technologies like geo-fencing, which creates virtual geographic boundaries through the software. This triggers the response time when a customer enters or exit from an area. Therefore,

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|SEPTEMBER 2018|

Essential Methodology

location intelligence can detect and prevent the frauds. It can be used to trace the debit and credit card transactions through the mobile net banking. All the fraudulent transactions can be prevented with location intelligence.

The Financial Sector Metro cities like Mumbai and Chennai are prone to natural calamities like floods and rain. The financial sector corporations, with the use of location intelligence, can access the damage rapidly and can create a relevant plan of action. These firms can rely on the strategic models for the accurate assessment of the forthcoming catastrophic events. There are limitless possibilities regarding the location intelligence. It plays an important role and helps in gaining efficiency and creating better opportunities in selling, cross-selling to its customers.

The Insurance Sector For the insurance brokers those who work with multiple insurances, location intelligence can help in many ways. These brokers can adapt the e-commerce models and start capturing the location of each customer. The challenge they face is due to

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the lack of connection in the remote areas as there are no insurance companies in the rural areas to serve customers.

Therefore, the insurance companies work in the remote locations using the location intelligence where the connection is the biggest issue.

The Life Insurance Sector The digital life cannot be imagined without the location in the overall picture of the BFSI industry. The insurance and banking sector has moved away from branch models and soon the physical presence will not be required and the need for customer walking in transactions will be eliminated. On the contrary, the companies are approaching the customers now and will continue to do in the upcoming years. In the end, for a business to go fully digitally, the aspect of location plays a key factor in reaching a potential customer.

Housing Loans The three important aspects in the housing loan sector are: - Sale pitch should be appropriate and the target audience should be properly segmented.

- The properties review should be favorable and perfect.

- In the case of LPS (Lender Service Provider), it is important how one collects money from the company.

In these three aspects, the location intelligence will play an important role.

Data Analytics For a data analytics company, a data whether it is related to a credit card or a phone is treated as a vertical. On the reverse, the location is treated as horizontal. The company

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observes the location and decides the creditworthiness of that location. Corporations are working hard towards breaking the data especially the big GST data. The firms can create a geo-profile coupled with many variables. These variables can track growth, pin code area, competition market, assets, and delinquencies. Location intelligence is central to all these variables.

Digital Lending Market Place The digital lending companies are always on the difficult side of the lending as it serves the underserved. These underserved companies comprise the ten-twenty percent of total SMEs population when compared to the remaining companies. When any transaction is completed, its location comes into play, which can further help in tracing the potential market.

Building Customer Relationships Location intelligence can play an important role in the relationship with customers. The location can help in creating basic customer data and in identifying the top markets, which can be easily penetrated. The location also provides the opportunities for building a high-value neighborhood data.

The banking and financial services are focusing on innovation to prepare for a technology-driven future.

Technology is helping banks, financial service providers, and insurance companies in creating personalized channel executing customer engagement and satisfaction. Location intelligence is definitely one of the key ingredients and an important parameter for BFSI firms that help analyze data spatially to give better insights for potential market discovery in the future.

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Guru Murthy Founder & CEO

Processware Systems: Fortifying the BFSI Space with its Ground-Breaking Solutions

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stablished in 1995, Processware Systems is the leading organization which has been providing unique software solutions to the BFSI segment since its foundation. Processware has designed and developed a host of digital banking solution including core banking solutions which have been offered on the cloud on a subscription basis. The company is spearheading through its technology initiatives like Data Analytics to predict Non-Performing Assets (NPA), AI-based chat bots for loan origination to name a few.

The Leading Light of Processware Systems A dynamic and an influential leader, Guru Murthy is the Founder & CEO of Processware. Guru has been the key-person in architecting the best-in-

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class products of the company. He returned to India in the early 90’s with a vivid goal of revolutionizing the BFSI sector.

Guru has a deep understanding of the sector requirements and articulates the solutions which best suits the customer.

He constantly challenges his developers to build interactive products to meet the varying requirements of the clients. Under his leadership, the company is continuously bringing in new products in the marketplace which has assisted Processware to gain and retain a large number of customers.

A Wide Array of Trailblazing Solutions Benefiting Clients Processware provides a complete suite of products for digital banking. The suite of the products embraces Core

Banking Solution, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, Branchless Banking, AI-based Loan origination chat bots, Analytics, QR Code based CRM system, and NPA Predictor.

It is one of the initial companies in India to adopt analytics to predict nonperforming assets in the financial sector. The company in association with the Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore) has developed this solution using various data-intensive algorithms which was partly funded by the Government of India. The researched solution allows financial institutions to predict NPA during the process of granting loans to customers. This was a revolutionary research made by Processware in association with IIM in the Indian BFSI sector. For the first time, big data |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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had been used for decision-making tasks in the banking industry.

Processware is the first organization which is offering core banking solution on the cloud since 2011 and has enabled many small and medium financial institutions to adopt the technology, without spending a lot of money on capital expenses. The cloud has also facilitated them in gaining operational efficiencies and hence, reduces the cost per transaction.

The customers of Processware gain a plethora of benefits which comprises branchless banking, decreasing the cost per transaction, increased level of regulatory compliance, a variety of delivery channels to meet customers’ expectations, formulating the internal IT Policies through the company’s association, developing new products to meet each segment of customer base, and many more. “Our customers have been the inspiration for Processware to keep developing leading edge technology products for the sector”, says Guru.

Welcoming the Challenges, Revealing the Opportunities Since a couple of decades, Processware has faced many challenges during its journey. Processware was one of the first software products company to operate in India. Initially, the software sector predominantly consisted of services companies and Processware found it difficult to raise funds for the product development and promotion.

In the early days, banks did not recognize Software Products as a sector and even NASSCOM was not willing to support product companies during the 90’s. Hence, finding product development skillsets was difficult in India during those days. |SEPTEMBER 2018|

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PROCESSWARE SYSTEMS DESIGNS AND DEVELOPS PRUDENT APPLICATION SOFTWARE TO OFFER UNIQUE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS During such a tough phase, one keyfactor which assisted Processware was the continuous invention of innovative solutions which contributed largely to the financial sector. The company designed and developed branchless banking solutions to run on Androidpowered tablets. Today, these solutions have been widely used across the world to provide the finest financial services to customers at their doorstep.

A Glimpse of Government Initiatives & Innovatory Technologies Government has been pro-active in providing the necessary support in the BFSI sector by relaxing the KYC norms for Jan-Dhan accounts to achieve financial inclusion.

Government’s UPI platform has processed more than 200 million transactions in June 2018.

Technology has been the prime factor in transforming this sector which has brought in the ease of doing financial transactions for end-users. The rise of smartphones across the country has given immense capability for the financial institutions to reach out to more customers.

Acknowledgments Received by the Company Processware has been accredited with

several awards over the last decade for its astounding and unique services. The company was selected as ‘One of the 20 Most Promising Banking Technology Solution providers in 2016’

by CIO Review. Processware was also selected as the vendor by Karnataka State Cooperative Urban Banks Federation to provide core banking solution on the cloud to UCBs.

Tapping into a Glorious Future with Tech-Advancements Every year, Processware keeps itself abreast of the new inventions in the industry and focuses to consolidate its leadership position in the financial sector. It has stepped into new markets outside India, which are Myanmar, Mozambique, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea which offer immense growth opportunities.

Processware is planning to build new products to aid decision-making process in the financial institutions using Artificial Intelligence and Analytics. These distinctive products will be available on the cloud for smaller to bigger institutions to benefit from the technology advancement. The company has also been working on the emerging technologies such as Block Chain and Crypto Currencies to deliver apt products to the financial sector.

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Technology

Impact on Mobile Money

Lending Segments and its

Future I

ndia has always had relationship driven banking & lending. To open a savings account in the State Bank of India, one still needs “an introduction from a respectable person / a customer of the branch”. The local auto garage only gets loans from the neighbourhood bank, if the branch manager knows the proprietor personally. This seems like a great mitigate of risk. With NPAs soaring, this seems like a reasonable strategy to control bad loans.

However, this is only a false comfort. Most of the NPAs come from large accounts greater than INR 1 Crore. What this relationship driven finance has done is that it has made credit very exclusive. Credit cards are seen as a luxury when it needs to be a necessity like mobile phone & internet. Credit is essential to break out of the poverty cycle.

Technology is yet to disrupt the lending space as it has done in entertainment, e-commerce and payments to some extent in Banking. Everyone is watching videos & live events on their mobile phones. Amazon delivered packages to 99% of India’s pin codes. Tea vendors on bicycles are accepting Paytm Payments. Banks no longer want customers walking

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into their branches. However, lending is lagging behind.

While the loan or the credit card application process has been digitized, there is a lack of awareness among users.

Many are still are apprehensive of using lending apps.

Submitting sensitive information like ID proofs, IT returns, Bank Statements through a mobile app is still a challenge for most. The underwriting policies are still archaic in most lending institutions. They are yet to embrace data science when it comes to the lending decisions. Post approval formalities are still largely paper-based. The customer still has to sign agreements and provide post-dated security cheques.

Disruptions happen on the back of platforms. Disruptions in other industries happened on a strong backbone of internet, GPS & mobile penetration. For lending, in addition to mobile & internet, the disruption enabling platform is India Stack. The stack consists of different layers including Aadhar eKYC, eSigns, UPI & consent driven data sharing.

The process from identifying a user’s intent to borrow all the way through to repayments will happen paperless & presence less. In the next 5 years we will see all users

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CXO Standpoint

authenticate themselves with Aadhar and sign agreements with eSigns. UPI 2.0 will automate payments and remove the need for physically signed cheques. A consent driven data sharing layer will make the process of submitting bank statements, IT returns and utility bills seamless & secure for the users.

An important piece that needs to mature more is underwriting process. While there are many smart NBFCs that have automated the underwriting process, the larger ones still rely on human intervention & subjectivity. This is due to the myriad forms in which an applicant’s data could come. Address proof, for example, can be one of 20+ document types each of which has no standard format. Data science, ML & AI are ripe to start experimentations in this space. Once the data formats are standardized, algorithms can munch through personal documents & financial statements in no time and without human errors or fatigue.

These algorithms can learn over time to discern between good & bad borrowers. There is ample research to prove how psychometric traits like impulsiveness and delayed

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gratifications are strongly related to a person’s financial discipline. We will see more this in the coming years. One word of caution though - AI & ML can go horribly wrong.

While we avoid human errors, computer bugs and faulty mathematical models will crop up.

Data privacy is an area for regulation to catch-up. Lending organizations will have access to private data of potential and existing borrowers. The need of the hour is to make it is easy for the user to know what data is being collected and constraint the sharing this data with 3rd parties. European Union has just taken a bold step in this direction with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Something along similar lines needs to emerge in India also.

Credit has not reached people who need it the most.

Technology is yet to disrupt lending like some of the other industries. Mobile & internet penetration along with India Stack is a transformative platform that will launch the lending industry. What we require is careful, innovative experimentation and data privacy regulations.

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Sagar Tanna & Sameer Tanna, Founders

TrackWizz A Unique and Self –Enhancing Product Suite of TSS

T

here are a whole lot of solutions that are available in the market but only a few can be experienced in compliance and operations. To resolve this, TSS Consultancy Pvt Ltd is committed to focus on making new enhancements with different solution for the compliances. It offers quality compliance solutions that are extremely efficient and available at a desirable cost.

Over a decade, TSS Consultancy is one of the fastest growing technology solutions providers in the financial industry. It is targeting on building innovative products for financial institutions with the help of its compliance and operations. The

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company is growing consistently from its inception by serving more than 150 institutions across BFSI with its TrackWizz. A product suite launched by TSS Consultancy has different modules and is used for compliance and operations. Apart from this, it has secured the second position continuously in a row from Crisil for its MSME Ratings. The company's vision is to become a trusted partner for the progressive institutions by not only with its compliance and operations but also with the support of its 140 professional experts.

The Magnificent Duo’s Sagar Tanna and Sameer Tanna are the Founders of TSS Consultancy Pvt

Ltd. Sagar completed his graduation in Bachelor of Information Technology from Atharva College of Engineering, while Sameer did his graduation in Bachelor of Computer Science from Cornell University.

Since the Tanna brothers belong from an engineering background, they gained their financial service experiences from their own family business of equity broking and external organization through which the brothers established TSS Consultancy.

They started by introducing Anti Money Laundering compliance in 2008 which was very new and capital markets were required to comply with the norms during that time. Later on, the brothers seized the opportunity of |SEPTEMBER 2018|

10 Most Prominent

The

AML solution by serving over 150 institutions across the BFSI sector.

A Unique Product Suite TrackWizz is a product suite which offers several modules of compliance and operations. It is self-enhancing while keeping pace with the changing landscape. These includes customer life cycle, anti-money laundering solution, insider trading & research analyst regulations, process & document management, franchisee / channel Partner and spend management.

The company commits to deliver its services for free with a new version for every quarter of the year. This is allowing the organization to focus on the growing business while it protects the risk arising out of the noncompliance. Presently, this compliance and operations suite is available at a subscription fee / pay per use model. In addition, TrackWizz CKYC solution is helping most of the top five banking sector to submit and exchange information with central KYC registry.

This single product is contributing a major share in uploading the records to the central KYC registry space.

Tailored- Customer Services TSS Consultancy is also driving its culture in every possible way in order to help its customers to meet their needs. Some of the excellent initiatives |SEPTEMBER 2018|

“ “

BFSI

Solution Providers In 2018

WE ENDURE TO PROVIDE OUR CUSTOMERS WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS, IMPECCABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE

of the company, firstly appointing a FATCA CRS Consultant to help its customers who have subscribed to its software, plus gets free consultation about FATCA CRS compliances and opinion in black and white. It has tied up with Thomson Reuters; a world check for data feeds which helps the company to screen its customers through largest repository of global data feeds.

Apart from this, it is one of the leaders in capital markets having more than 90 percent market share among institutions using an AML Product.

Currently, it is serving more than 100 institutions. It has also earned a reputation of reliable partner with a robust offering and significant contribution to a majority of bank brokerages & commodity stock exchanges.

Being a software service model provider, the company enriches in keeping pace with the changing time and requirements. This model can be afforded by every institution, be it big or small, as the software comes at per transaction cost or pay per use. The company delivers free services regarding new changes as per the request from its customers and in a time bound manner. Free tax consultant advisory is helping the customers to get black and white opinions from experts at no additional cost. Even the company arranges knowledge webinars taken by industry leaders for its customers.

Future Endeavors TSS Consultancy always believes that a strong foundation product can help a company to serve its customers in a long way. So, it has built TrackWizz to perform as one of the best compliance and operations suite in the world.

While talking about the future, Tanna brothers said “We see ourselves as a premier technology partner trusted by the most progressive and credible institutions for their compliance and operation’s needs.”

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