Capital One Builds A Foundation for Growth Through Key Systems Integrations
When Dhandapani later took over as CIO of Capital One's Financial Services Division in 2010, she again found the division's IT organization needed to replace key mortgage loan systems. "Every bank we acquired came with one or more mortgage origination and point-of-sale systems. … I found that none of the systems had the ability to scale or could meet our compliance needs," she relates.
[Banking Transformation: How Do We Get There? ]
Dhandapani had to quickly find new point-of-sale, origination and fulfillment systems, and, in consultation with the head of the home loans division, found products that satisfied their needs (she declined to name the products and partners involved).
Dhandapani and her team then went into a whirlwind of activity, managing to implement a new point-of-sale system in four months, and a new origination and fulfillment system in 12 months after that. "It was one of the fastest deployments that we've ever seen [at Capital One]," she says.
The new home loans systems enabled the bank to shut off a number of legacy point-of-sale and origination systems it had inherited from the banks it had acquired, she says. Ridding the bank of those legacy systems and implementing the new ones also laid the groundwork for Capital One's next acquisition: its purchase of ING Direct U.S. last year. "We had made a path forward in terms of the products we wanted to use, and luckily it just so happened that ING had chosen a similar path," she says.
Dhandapani was responsible for integrating ING Direct's home loans technology organization into the Capital One Financial Services Division. The bank just announced that the integration was completed in August, she says. The IT team used agile methodologies in integrating the ING Direct's core home loan platforms, breaking the projects up into smaller, more manageable increments. "We were able to complete the integration of all of our core platforms within a short 15-month period," she notes.
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As if Dhandapani has not done enough work on platform integration, she says one of her key areas of focus in 2014 will be to find more ways to consolidate and simplify the bank's IT infrastructure. "We want to see how we can drive the power of one technology for one domain, so as we continue our growth aspirations for our division, we can simplify our underlying infrastructure," she explains.
Personal Snapshot
Chandra Dhandapani
Senior VP and CIO, Financial Services Division, Capital One Bank
Years in position: 1
Previous positions: Managing VP and CIO, Financial Services Division, Capital One, March 2010 - Dec. 2012; VP and CIO, Capital One Auto Finance, August 2009 - March 2010
Education: MBA, information systems, University of Texas Arlington, 1998; MBA, India (marketing and finance), 1989; BS, mathematics, India, 1987
Hobbies: She is on the board of a nonprofit that helps at-risk girls and enjoys golfing and skiing
Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio
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