Significant advances in Information Technology are affecting nearly all aspects of the business of banking, and dramatically changing the nature of what banks deliver and how. And these changes are only ushering in even more radical shifts.

The past two decades have witnessed enormous reductions in the cost of Information Technology. Between 1986 and 1995, the computing power of the average PC increased eleven fold, while the price declined significantly. Around the same time, a revolution in telecommunications reduced the cost of transmitting data by 90 percent. Such cost reductions have made it far more economical to acquire, store, transmit, and transform data into information. They have also created enormous changes in data-intensive industries such as financial services — which is, fundamentally, about processing information.

Advances in IT have also resulted in new database technology and data-mining techniques that may expand the range of services that banks offer their customers. This technology allows firms to use customer information gathered in one line of business, for instance, banking, to increase sales in the others, such as insurance or brokerage services, and is one of the factors driving recent industry consolidation. Large financial enterprises are hoping to take advantage of the “cross-selling” opportunities created by IT. Advances in IT have opened up market niches for competitors in unexpected places. Many firms, not just banks, can now use statistical models to evaluate risk efficiently, originate loans, transform them into marketable securities, and sell them to obtain funding to offer more loans.

At Hexaware we help the banking industry unravel new opportunities, geographies and markets with innovative solutions. We share some of them with you in this month’s newsletter.

Hexaware's Billing Management System (BMS) addresses the problems faced by asset management companies . BMS is designed to obtain basic account and balances information, maintenance of additional billing related information, processing required to perform accruals, calculate invoices, review and release invoices, and to create extracts to accounting, revenue projection and MIS systems. This complete billing management solution reduces billing cycle time and costs and removes all the process pain-points. Hexaware's BMS uses the latest technologies and its SEI CMM Level 5 certification assures clients of highest quality standards.

Financial service is also the term used to describe organizations that deal with the management of money. Banks, investment banks, credit card companies and stock brokerages, are examples of the types of firms comprising the industry, which provides a variety of money and investment related services.
Worldwide financial services’ spending is projected to total $472.6 billion in 2006, a 3.6 percent increase from 2005 spending of $456.3 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2007, the market is expected to grow 4.5 percent to $493.7 billion