Banks urged to get onboard Fintech platform to be part of ongoing disruption

By Shabiya Ali Ahlam
The financial institutions received a strong push by the leading local software development company hSenid to get onboard the financial technology (Fintech) platform to reap the benefits of the ongoing disruption across all industries.
With online transaction volumes moving towards a positive growth trajectory in Sri Lanka, the financial institutions were advised to actively embrace and evolve with the technology instead of allowing the telcos to dominate the online and mobile payment space.
Although the local financial institutions have been acknowledged to be taking part in the technological boom, the slow pace of absorbing the same will soon place the entities out of the online payment equation, cautioned hSenid CEO Dinesh Sapramadu yesterday while addressing a thought leadership forum attended by senior ranking 
banking officials.
“In order to successfully orchestrate the transformation towards a more customer-centric model, banks should formulate a cohesive C-level digital strategy which can be achieved by combining critical factors of banking such as customer behavioural psychology, optimizing distribution, building technology capabilities and synchronizing internal workflow with service delivery,” opined Sapramadu.
It was pointed out that with the explosion of technology, the experience of customers across industries is influencing their expectations from their financial service provider. This, in turn, is said to be leading into an evolving customer-bank relationship, necessitating the banks to be more customer centric, embedding themselves in customers’ lives to meeting rising customer expectation.
“Current macroeconomic forces and technology advents continuously reshape how we do business. Shoppers today no longer simply go to the nearest store, they grab the nearest digital device, so it is imperative for banks to keep abreast with this dynamic environment and seamlessly connect the digital consumer and business,” 
elaborated Sapramadu.
In a bid to meet customer expectations, it was suggested that the banks today need to allow frictionless, multi-devices anywhere and real-time interaction using channels not only limited to banking channels but beyond.
Pointing out that digital disruption in banking is not only limited to bridging the customer and the bank, hSenid shared that a trend is currently observed where the financial institutions’ converge with the other industries, especially the tech companies, to innovate and create distinctive products to meet customer expectations.
Allowing financial entities to be part of the ongoing disruption, hSeind’s latest development is a financial technology platform for digitalization for financial institutions and alliances. The platform aims at assisting entities in the financial space to open up their core assets and gain access to new innovative disruptions.
Reaching the 20-year milestone this year, hSenid is an application and service provider for the telecom, financial and enterprise markets. It specialises in human resource applications and mobile applications for the enterprise and wireless markets. hSenid is also widely recognised for its reliable offshore and outsourcing capabilities. Currently it serves over 400,000 users globally across 18 industries in over 30 countries.