The landscape of banking technology is currently experiencing a momentous transformation, poised to reshape the financial industry over the next decade. This paradigm shift demands banks’ adoption of digital technology and a profound reevaluation of their services to meet customers’ evolving needs. This transformation unfolds in a fiercely competitive arena, with many new entrants and established players in an ever-expanding market. The call for modernisation echoes throughout the banking sector, affecting every segment, organisation, and team.

To fully grasp the significance of this transformation, it’s essential to categorise the history of banking technology into five distinct waves, each representing a pivotal juncture in the evolution of the financial sector:

• Wave 1: Inception witnessed the advent of mainframes and card machines, primarily serving the purpose of record-keeping, general ledger management, and interest calculations.
• Wave 2: Progression ushered in the era of mini-computers and desktop terminals, introducing applications for branch automation and back-end operations.
• Wave 3: Expansion saw banking services transcend physical branches with server-based software accessible over networks
• Wave 4: The digital age emerged, compelling banks to explore online channels and deploy complex online systems.

BankTech Wave 5: The Current Frontier

The present epoch, BankTech Wave 5, centres on larger banks evolving into marketplaces. These marketplaces offer a broad spectrum of financial services: cash management, lending, SME support, insurance, and more. BankTech Wave 5 stands as a true game-changer in the industry, encapsulating six imperatives collectively known as the ABCDEF of the Banking Ecosystem Design, all firmly grounded in the principles of Design Thinking:

1. Architecture: At its core, this imperative revolves around four guiding principles: Independence, Scale, Simplicity, and Resilience
2. Base of eMACH.ai: eMACH.ai underscores Configurability, Richness, API accessibility, Scalability, Ease of Integration, and Composability
3. Composable: This imperative encompasses principles such as Hyper-personalised Experience Design, Low Touch/No-Touch Operation Design, Drag and Drop Integration Design, and Product to Platform
4. Data: In the modern era, data has emerged as the new oil, offering boundless opportunities for those capable of gathering, controlling, and analysing it
5. Embedded AI and Intelligence: Embedded AI enhances operational productivity and reduces operational costs to achieve efficiency, real-time hyper-automation, and real-time decision-making
6. Flexible and Extensible: Cloud technology bridges banks operating on legacy platforms, facilitating a smoother transition to a marketplace model. Banks often work in a hybrid environment comprising old and new systems, both on-premise and in the cloud

eMACH.ai – Pioneering a New Era of Generative AI

In the ever-evolving banking and finance landscape, staying ahead of the curve and simplifying operations is paramount. eMACH.ai, the world’s largest and most innovative open finance platform from the House of Intellect, aspires to revolutionise the operations of financial institutions. It offers a comprehensive, composable, contextual platform that empowers financial institutions to design customer-centric solutions.

What sets eMACH.ai apart is its ability to enable banks, NBFCs, and other financial institutions to compete with fintechs by having their own technology. For instance, the largest credit card issuer in the country, incidentally one of the largest private sector banks in India, uses Intellect technology to originate cards. This ensures the ability to source applications through multiple channels (physical, e commerce sites etc), do third party validations and ensure the applications are processed in real time. What differentiates them is their eMACH architecture, enabling high scalability and the delivery of contextual and composable solutions.

One of the challenges facing MSME is their ability to decide what is the best product (working capital finance, equipment finance) etc and since the RMs are new they dont know what to advise their customers. Our GenAI solution nudges the customer to choose the right product for them thereby offering a win-win solution.

In summary, BankTech Wave 5 marks a pivotal moment of metamorphosis in banking technology, and this groundbreaking platform empowers banks and financial institutions with the essential tools to navigate the perpetually evolving landscape, offering pioneering, customer-focused solutions unlocked by Generative AI, showcasing how innovation and technology are reshaping the banking sector’s future.