Banking Industry - Vision 2010
[Source: IBA Committee under the Chairmanship of Shri S C Gupta, CMD IOB ]

Technology in Banking

Technology will bring fundamental shift in the functioning of banks. It would not only help them bring improvements in their internal functioning but also enable them to provide better customer service. Technology will break all boundaries and encourage cross border banking business. Banks would have to undertake extensive Business Process Re-Engineering and tackle issues like:

1. how best to deliver products and services to customers

2. designing an appropriate organizational model to fully capture the benefits of technology and business process changes brought about.

3. how to exploit technology for deriving economies of scale and how to create cost efficiencies, and

4. how to create a customer - centric operation model.

Entry of ATMs has changed the profile of front offices in bank branches. Customers no longer need to visit branches for their day to day banking transactions like cash deposits, withdrawals, cheque collection, balance enquiry etc. E-banking and Internet banking have opened new avenues in "convenience banking". Internet banking has also led to reduction in transaction costs for banks to about a tenth of branch banking.

Technology solutions would make flow of information much faster, more accurate and enable quicker analysis of data received. This would make the decision making process faster and more efficient. For the Banks, this would also enable development of appraisal and monitoring tools which would make credit management much more effective. The result would be a definite reduction in transaction costs, the benefits of which would be shared between banks and customers.

While application of technology would help banks reduce their operating costs in the long run, the initial investments would be sizeable. IT spent by banking and financial services industry in USA is approximately 7% of the revenue as against around 1% by Indian Banks. With greater use of technology solutions, we expect IT spending of Indian banking system to go up significantly.

One area where the banking system can reduce the investment costs in technology applications is by sharing of facilities. We are already seeing banks coming together to share ATM Networks. Similarly, in the coming years, we expect to see banks and FIs coming together to share facilities in the area of payment and settlement, back office processing, data warehousing, etc. While dealing with technology, banks will have to deal with attendant operational risks. This would be a critical area the Bank management will have to deal with in future.

Payment and Settlement system is the backbone of any financial market place. The present Payment and Settlement systems such as Structured Financial Messaging System (SFMS), Centralised Funds Management System (CFMS), Centralised Funds Transfer System (CFTS) and Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) will undergo further fine-tuning to meet international standards. Needless to add, necessary security checks and controls will have to be in place. In this regard, Institutions such as IDRBT will have a greater role to play.