Elly Yates-Roberts |
Over the last two years we’ve seen a dramatic acceleration to digital and the uptake of cloud-based solutions as the pandemic has changed the way we live, work and interact with one another. Technology has been crucial in enabling us to support our staff, our partners and our customers as we all adjust to a ‘new normal’ way of working.
We recognised early on that Covid-19 had brought the future forward and communicated how Finastra – as a company built for the future – would help our people respond. We formalised this in our OPENWorking workplace of the future proposition. Modelled on a hybrid, best of both worlds approach, our global workforce is equipped with the technology they need to balance their time working at home and in the office.
In addition to Microsoft technologies and communication tools, we’ve also equipped our teams with other workplace modernisation tools to help them work as productively as possible, either remotely or on-premises. Our goal has been to create a truly global collaborative digital environment and to drive a digital-first mindset among Finastra employees.
We’ve carried this same digital-first approach through to the way we engage and collaborate with partners. For example, our Fusion Orbit partner programme provides our partners with everything they need to succeed, including digital enablement tools, go-to-market resources and sales training via a dedicated partner portal.
A digital-first approach to collaborating with partners has enabled business to continue essentially uninterrupted throughout the pandemic, at a time when premises have been closed, travel severely limited and our joint workforces have been operating remotely.
Partner events that would have previously taken place in person are being delivered virtually – with great success. Similarly, virtual partner updates and in-depth technical and sales training for partners are delivered online – providing high-value, digital engagement to a community of partners across the globe. Robust digital processes are in place for accreditations and certifications, and partners are encouraged to interact with Finastra’s product experts and sales consultants virtually – allowing them to access all the support they require when they need it.
Finastra is also focused on pioneering a world of open finance through our industry expertise, open technology and global partner ecosystem. For us it’s about encouraging all ecosystem players, big and small, to contribute and innovate together, making the world of finance and technology more accessible and more equal.
Together with our partners, Finastra is building a collaborative digital ecosystem and using the power of the cloud to service customer needs in the most effective and efficient way. We know that collaboration is crucial to success in a world where innovation can happen anywhere.
Alongside all our global ecosystem partners we aim to provide people, businesses and communities with the solutions and services that fit around their needs and lives. We already support 3,000 banks and financial institutions across payments, lending, treasury and retail banking on Microsoft Azure, and our global account teams partner to deliver successful business outcomes for joint customers from discovery to delivery and ongoing support.
Providing Finastra’s solutions in the cloud delivers the scale, security and geographic reach required by banks and financial institutions to deliver differentiated customer experiences. It also makes it easier to harness the advanced reporting and cognitive services capabilities, such as those available through Azure, to enrich users’ access to the right data at the right time to better serve their customers.
Our partners have a key role to play, alongside Finastra, in helping banks and financial institutions accelerate through change so that they can support their customers in the best way possible. We’re committed to sharing our collective expertise in technology transformation and delivering on our vision to redefine financial services for good.
If financial institutions are to keep pace with new competitors and digital challengers in a new world of embedded, connected, open finance, they need to collaborate. They can no longer innovate in isolation.
Banks are increasingly cognizant of this and are showing an increasing willingness to move away from deploying and maintaining all technology on-premises – consuming software instead on a managed service basis. Finastra has been working closely with partners to deliver applications in this way. By outsourcing business process operations and technology infrastructure to a certified Finastra managed services provider (MSP) banks benefit from fixed, predictable costs, a resilient service and increased agility since the software is continually updated.
With an MSP to take care of a bank’s operational and technology burden, in-house teams can redirect their resources towards innovation-led programmes focused on key competitive priorities such as bringing new products to market faster. This way, they are enabled to move at the speed of digital banks, and to innovate at pace in preparation for a new world of banking-as-a-service, embedded and contextual finance.
Denise Parker is senior vice president and global head of partners and ecosystems at Finastra
This article was originally published in the Winter 21/22 issue of Technology Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.