As cost pressures and regulatory requirements continue to challenge the abilities of financial institutions and corporations to grow revenue, they are looking at alternatives to maintaining installed IT infrastructure, such as managed services and service-oriented architecture.
IT executives are beginning to outsource more IT infrastructure and application management services to help reduce total cost of ownership and free up internal resources.
This is particularly true in relation to back-office functions, as well as areas that do not contribute directly to revenues but were previously considered too risky to outsource.
“The business process-as-a-service model will gain momentum because firms can leverage a utility model that serves multiple companies, provides economies of scale and supports an efficient end-to-end business process,” said Kalpesh Master, managing partner for managed services at trading technology firm SunGard’s global services business.
“Firms will continue to seek software solutions delivered on a software-as-a-service basis, so they can select software components in the cloud to create a single, customized solution.”
Broadening their commercial offer with new financial products and cutting costs were the main priorities for credit institutions in 2012.
In 2013, the development of front office tools—an essential component in any distribution channel—is still vitally important, particularly when it comes to consumer credit, and extending the range of financial products and services offered is still a major challenge, according to a survey by investment management and credit community service provider Linedata on the lending and asset finance sector.
Cost optimization remains a constant concern that will continue to compel companies to streamline processes and IT resources.
“Thanks to a service-oriented architecture, we are able to provide modular, easy-to-integrate solutions that are adapted to the development strategy of each institution,” said Alain Mattei, managing director of credit and finance at Linedata. "Our model is based on a partnership relationship with our customers: our role is to strengthen their development by giving them a real competitive edge when it comes to customer knowledge, the quality of their offer and the management of their risks."
Within the lending and asset finance sector, Linedata provides two software platforms: Linedata Ekip and Linedata Profinance.
The platforms manage the entire life cycle of a contract, from the first customer contact through to accounting, with integrated workflow streamlines and optimized business processes, the company says.
SunGard, meanwhile, is transforming the way its software solutions are created and delivered to its customers. Underlying technologies include a service-oriented architecture development framework, a business process management platform (Infinity Process Platform) and a delivery platform to enable software-as-a-service based solutions.
SunGard has released a new version of Asset Arena InvestOne, a global accounting solution for asset managers, custodian banks and third party administrators. Its proprietary cloud technology currently supports nearly 75% of Asset Arena InvestOne customers.
“Firms will look for outsourcing providers that can offer cloud computing to help more quickly prototype and develop applications,” said Master.
SunGard has also added scalability to its data center processing environments that provide on-demand computing capacity to help meet customers’ growing requirements.