Bian, the Banking Industry Architecture Network, today welcomes four new members to its community, including its first Asian bank, Bangkok Bank (the largest commercial bank in Thailand), and blue chip financial services consultancy, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
Gaining further traction in Asia, BIAN has also formed its first academic partnership, with Singapore Management University (SMU). The university will interconnect the leading core banking solutions using the BIAN service landscape.
SMU has designed a multi-year programme entitled 'SMU Teaching Bank for Financial Services Technology Education' ('SMU Teaching Bank'). It will see a teaching bank built from the ground up, using a mixture of vendor products, to demonstrate real world change scenarios, such as a core banking system replacement or a bank merger.
Erste Group, one of the largest financial services providers in Central and Eastern Europe, and Axxiome, a financial services consultancy firm, have also joined BIAN's virtual community which consists of the most forward-thinking visionaries collaborating on standards for service-oriented architecture (SOA) in the banking industry. This brings BIAN's total network membership to 34 members, comprised of 15 banks and 19 systems integrators and software vendors. These industry participants are working to define and set the de facto IT standards for banking interoperability, in order to significantly reduce banks' IT integration costs.
Hans Tesselaar, Executive Director of BIAN, said: "We are delighted to bring onboard the four new members and are particularly pleased to have an Asian bank join the BIAN community. Bangkok Bank's collaboration in the working groups will ensure our efforts have a truly global scope. Asian financial institutions are embarking on a wave of core system renewals and upgrades, as new foreign entrants are forcing domestic enhancements. Celent predicts spend on core systems in APAC to exceed US $2 billion in 2013. Integration costs can be as much as triple the purchase cost of software, meaning these banks could be spending up to $6 billion on integration, which is in this moment of time, unnecessary. It is imperative that Asian banks collaborate with their internatitional peers when planning these core banking projects and adopt open standards for SOA."
Ian Guy Gillard, EVP, Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited: "The bank adopted a service-oriented architecture over 15 years ago with the objectives of improved agility, reduced cost and improved consistency. In the past five years, we have implemented newer technologies based on web services to expand and update the infrastructure supporting our SOA. We view standardisation across the industry - amongst both financial institutions and vendors - as the key to realising the promise of SOA and simplifying the integration effort of major projects. We are impressed with BIAN's existing membership and are delighted to be part of this visionary organisation. We hope this forum will provide real business value in the years ahead."
Professor Steven Miller, Vice Provost (Research) and Dean of the School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University: "SMU is the first university in the world to join the BIAN network and we look forward to the collaboration to build a 'teaching bank' from the ground up, using current and emerging architectural best practices. Our teaching bank's service-oriented architecture is guided by the BIAN Service Landscape, which we recognise as the emerging banking industry standard model for SOA. SMU Teaching Bank is a platform for collaboration with banks and vendors to create and test new ideas for banking systems and processes. We will work with the industry and BIAN community to trial and test change scenarios, such as a core banking system replacement, or a bank merger whereby multiple banking systems need to be integrated to coexist."
R. Vivekanand, Vice President & Global Head - Product Delivery, TCS Financial Solutions: "We are pleased to be joining BIAN. TCS has always been committed to adopting standards and influencing them where possible. We believe BIAN offers the potential for further standardisation and gives banks the tools to rationalise and simplify their businesses. We see BIAN as a vehicle to contribute to help deliver these open business standards in a collaborative manner, for the benefit of all financial institutions."
Christian Gosch, Group CIO, Erste Group: "I am absolutely convinced that cost pressures and banking regulation will lead to stronger convergence in business, operations and IT. To stay competitive in the long run, banks need to leverage investment in core banking infrastructure with peers and embrace open standards - 'coopetition'. BIAN is building these standards for easier software selection and far less costly integration. Treating core banking infrastructure as a commodity will allow us to put more emphasis on innovation and areas where IT can bring competitive advantage."
Kris Hansen, Vice President, Architecture and Management Consulting, Axxiome: "We are delighted to be joining the BIAN community and to align our products and methods to a global standard which is the result of bank and industry partnership. We firmly believe that financial services organisations will benefit from the interoperability and clarity that BIAN is bringing to the industry, and we are glad to contribute our ideas and expertise to help achieve this goal."