Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Bank of Baroda has aggressively rolled out CBS in its 1,600+ branches, including 43 in 14 overseas territories, covering more than 90% of their business and its interconnected ATM network in India-that stand at more than 1,000 across 440 centers. The bank has ambitious plans of technology deployment for overall business growth, keeping it competitive and making it the preferred bank for the new generation. BoB is planning to extend this network in stages in the future. It is also planning to deploy biometric ATMs at rural centers. Bank of Baroda's DGM, Projects & IT Infrastructure, Asawa KM shares his technology deployment plans and issues. Excerpts

Which technologies are going to be the key drivers in banking in the coming days?
Our technology initiatives are focused on the customer. Our “Business Transformation Program”, encompassing technology, is a customer centric initiative to offer the convenience of banking on a 24x7 basis, at all major centers in India and abroad. This would be done through deployment of the core banking solution integrated with delivery channels like the ATM, Internet, phones, mobiles, kiosks, and call centers.

Mobile technologies will play a very dominant role, as they provide convenience and ease of use. In the indian banking space it will broaden the meaning of 'anytime, anywhere' banking to customers. With increasing mobility of the Indian workforce, our customers want more information on the move. Besides SMS-based information on their bank balance, they also need information about the nearest ATM/branch on their mobile. While banking transaction on the mobile is already a reality in India, the integration of barcodes and technologies like RFID will bring on a revolution. Mobile phones used in European countries will be introduced in India shortly, where the ATM will be able to connect to the phone and carry out banking transactions.

Your presence is growing in both India and abroad. What then are your main IT/telecom requirements? What is your investment plan for 2008-09?
We are looking at network expansion to remote branches where terrestrial links are not available. We are also planning to explore alternative links like RF/VSAT. Migration of our existing branches to a centralized banking system will continue as a focus area. However, through unified communication systems, we wish to introduce a videoconferencing system for our customers/branch officials seeking experts' opinion from a centralized pool. This could be for portfolio management, credit options, etc. We are also exploring various alternatives for our ambitious overseas expansion. The time to market, reliability, and costs are major concerns.

We had built our global data center in Mumbai for running our centralized banking solution and other applications for all our branches across India and other countries on a single platform of technology. The data center functions as a central data and application hub of the bank for both its domestic and international operations. The center has been designed and implemented by our technology partner HP, meeting all attributes of a tier-3 data center and having certification capability for ISO 27001.

When we started the data center, it was in a rental space. We are shifting this to our own facilities, and this forms a large chunk of our expenditure. We are also planning to make it green, aimed at contributing to the ecosystem. Our existing data center was designed considering the vertical servers. With the invention of blade servers, which are horizontal and have a very high computing density, the entire thermodynamics of the cooling system at the data center has changed and, as the research indicates, it is extremely important to look at an alternate design. With the introduction of the green data center, we will not only save on energy bills, but, more importantly, will contribute to the ecosystem and join the growing list of organizations concerned about ecology.

We are also planning to set up a “near site data center.” This is aimed at ensuring “online-real time duplication of financial data to ensure 100% recovery. The other focus areas include virtualization, data archival and data cleaning.

The uniqueness of your IT and telecom infrastructure?
The IT infrastructure is mission critical in our bank because our 1,600 plus domestic branches and 43 branches in 14 countries are running on a common platform, using centralized systems through the IT infrastructure. Our ever-expanding ATM network and a vast card base with merchant establishments are all linked through this infrastructure. Our value added services like e-banking, RapidFunds2India, utility bills payment, and e-ticketing depend on the infrastructure. Being the banking sector, our services are essential to our customers at any time and place. Our presence in different time zones and 24x7 operations are supported by the IT infrastructure. The intra-bank STP is possible through this infrastructure.

Now that convergence is taking place in ICT, how important would it be for your sector?
The banking sector is completely dependent on ICT. We expect that with the convergence of these technologies, the operations will move toward self-service, and, thus, will substantially bring down the cost of transaction with improved customer convenience. There will also be a lot of savings on deployment, maintenance and operational cost of technology within the organization.

How do you handle the IT risks and security issues?
IT security issues are handled through a well-defined information security management structure adopted by the bank, working at strategic, tactical and day-to-day operational level. At the implementation level, the bank has deployed various advance security mechanism and best-of-breed products like centralized AV solution, firewalls, IDS, RSA tokens, ADs, SSL certificates, SSO, DR solutions, among other. Security services where the bank does not have the required competence have been outsourced to SI, who are implementing controls as based on the security management directives.

What has been your experience in terms of services delivered by the service provider?
Our experience is reasonably good. It largely depends on a clear understanding of expectations, backed by properly defined and documented SLAs. However, the industry has to mature in terms of their commitment for deliveries, which, in the absence of a fast and strong legal system, remains only at the contractual level. For instance, when we enter into an agreement, we meet the marketing team of a vendor which promises the heaven. But when they start delivering, our interaction is with the execution team, who start reading the fine prints of the contract rather than the spirit of the relationship.

Asawa KM, DGM Projects & IT Infrastructure, Bank of Baroda

We also feel that lack of appreciation of virtues and follies of technology by conventional business owners continue to be the biggest problem in unlocking business values. Besides, integration of heterogeneous technologies to provide flexibility in delivering services is a technological challenge. Ultimately, to derive maximum value out of IT investments, the technology has to be embedded in the business strategy of the organization.

Through active participation of business leaders in making IT investment decisions, we try to ensure that all IT and telecom investments are linked to the business goals. Our outsourcing model is BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer). We have adopted the system integrator approach, where the identified SI is responsible for designing and implementing an end-to-end solution, confirming to functional requirements and laid down SLAs.

Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in