Tighter Data Integration: The Top Priority for Financial Organizations

German software company SEEBURGER unveils market trend findings that drive technology investment decisions in financial organizations worldwide

Kuala Lumpur, 28 SEPTEMBER 2012 — SEEBURGER, the leading German-based business integration and enterprise class Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions provider today shares some of its market trend findings amongst global financial institutions, as part of its involvement at the Vietnam Finance 2012 forum.

According to SEEBURGER’s APAC, Managing Director, James Hatcher, tighter data integration is the one of the top priority technology purchase decisions by global financial organizations today.

“This information is based on SEEBURGER’s customer reference data that indicates that financial organizations’ business drivers boil down to the ability to reduce costs, focus on core (banking) operations, and to reduce risk via better data security.”

Hatcher says that the one common challenge in meeting these three business drivers is the issue of data integration.

“Almost all banks, like a typical financial organization, face the legacy issue of having to deal with many silo-ed, or disparate systems. Even till today, a lot of data is captured at different sources and remains “stranded on data islands” within the different systems where they reside.”

In addition to the laborious process of integrating this data for effective usage, Hatcher shares that the challenge grows with trends sweeping the banking landscape today.

“Firstly, core Banking systems are designed to last at least 10 years before replacement, and we are in the current era where many ASEAN banks have reached the 2nd cycle for replacement.”

“Secondly, is the pressing demand for web-based banking solutions. In trying to keep up with the rapid evolution of web-based banking products and services, many organizations are struggling with how to deliver tight data integration at the solutions’ backend without hard coding. Hard coding interfaces compounds the enterprise level integration scenario when you look at modernizing a financial infrastructure.”

“Thirdly, next-generation applications such as advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and business analytics systems are resulting in multiple databases for the same customer accounts. Synchronization of master data becomes another business issue.”


Benefits to Data Integration

Hatcher shares some quantitative statistics on the benefits which financial organizations have successful benefited from adopting data consolidation solutions.

“Based on our customer reference accounts, there is up to 96% reduction of expenditure related to search (ie. document tracking); 65% cost cuts in implementing B2B/EDI interfaces; 60% in reduction of software maintenance fees; 50% in reduction of hidden operation cost and operation personnel; and 30% reduction in transfer fees.”

Similar to other ASEAN nations, Hatcher says that Malaysia’s financial organizations will continue to place data integration as a priority over the next 24 months.

For more details on file sharing security, please visit http://www.seeburger.com/managed-file-transfer.html