IBM, Oracle and i-flex to Collaborate on Banking Solutions
IBM (White Plains, N.Y.), Oracle (Redwood Shores, Calif.) and i-flex (Mumbai, India) will collaborate to provide joint banking customers with infrastructure, services and support for enterprise applications, core banking and risk management.
The banking collaboration will combine the business and IT architectural leadership of IBM in banks, banking-specific application solutions from Oracle, and core banking and risk solutions from i-flex.
"This is a pretty exciting collaboration for us," says Ashwin Goyal, VP financial services industry strategy and marketing for Oracle. The collaboration puts a "programmatic structure" around collaboration between the three companies that has been going on for quite some time. It's bringing the strengths of all three organizations together, Goyal says."The advantage is a significant boost to what we collectively bring to the market."
With the news, announced on Oct. 11, the companies announced the launch of i-flex's retail banking product, FLEXCUBE, on the IBM System z mainframe platform. Under terms of the agreement, IBM plans to expand its services with Oracle and i-flex to help ensure unparalleled integration and support for IBM platforms.
"This alliance is a combination of the broadest and deepest products lines," Goyal says. It will deliver services that are unmatched in the marketplace. Customers will benefit by being able to work with fewer vendors. The IBM, Oracle and i-flex collaboration also allows banking customers the opportunity to work with trusted vendors who will be around for a long time and can mitigate risks involved in a core banking transformation, he says.
"The collaboration represents a unique combination of leading companies to provide a comprehensive and total solution for top tier banks to migrate to the integrated banking applications and platforms of the future," said R. Ravisankar, CEO, international operations and business development, i-flex solutions, in a release. "IBM's proven ability to manage complex systems integration, their experience on i-flex applications and phased and evolutionary migration will ensure minimal disruption risk."
"Large banks are now more aggressively using leading-edge IT systems to meet growth targets. As bankers increasingly select innovative solutions to drive revenue, they need help planning IT strategy, designing next-generation architectures and deploying and supporting applications," said Ian Hurst, general manager, banking and financial markets industries, IBM, in a release. "Our companies will work together to offer bankers proven, market-leading solutions in CRM, core systems and risk analytics. These joint offerings will help banking clients to quickly and cost-effectively execute business strategies."
The three companies share a common vision of the competitive differentiators in banking where institutions must:
- Proactively service their customers in a consistent manner through all delivery channels
- Rapidly configure, bundle and price product offerings to respond to market opportunities
- Instantly leverage the terabytes of information about clients and markets to manage risk, ensure compliance and define profitability