We are looking at expanding our reach through m-banking

Founded in 1906 by a group of eminent businessmen from
Mumbai, Bank of India, after nationalization in 1969, has grown to include 3,101
branches in India spread over all states/union territories, including 141
specialized branches. While adhering to a policy of prudence and caution, the
bank has been in the forefront of introducing various innovative services and
systems. It pioneered the introduction of the Health Code System in 1982, for
evaluating/rating its credit portfolio. It also collaborated with the Bombay
Stock Exchange to establish the BOI Shareholding, which extends depository
services to the stock broking community. Bank of India was the first Indian Bank
to open a branch outside the country, and it has a sizable presence abroad. A
forerunner in ICT initiatives as well, Bank of India till date is vying to keep
up with its counterparts abroad. Explaining more about the changing face of
technology in the banking sector is PA Kalyan Sundar, GM, IT, Bank of India.
Excerpts

How has the delay in 3G
and WiMax auction obstructed your plans to achieve better connectivity across
your various centers in India? With the further delay, what other technology
options are you looking at?

The delay in 3G has not affected us in any way, as our communication
requirements are met by leased line connectivity; and we use VSAT and the
Internet for the rest, which is sufficient for us. 3G is required more for video
based applications, where large bandwidth is required . However, for data
processing in a bank, the current technology is good enough.

Convergence and WLAN as well as cloud computing are coming
to India in a big way. Do you plan to implement any of the new technologies in
your business model?

Yes, we plan to implement cloud computing for data security and
confidentiality, for infrastructure, or simply to put applications on a shared
platform—educational or via emails, but not for banking transactions.

Banks were only present in urban areas earlier. Forty years
ago, however, banks became nationalized and were extended to rural areas.
However, till date in 90% villages, there is no bank branch, and 50% of the
population in rural and urban areas have no bank accounts. Thus, in terms of new
technologies, we are working on financial inclusion through smart cards,
hand-held devices and other connectivity options available, be it GPRS, landline
connectivity, etc. We aim to provide services in remote areas (all PSUs are also
doing this). The advantage for rural customers is that they don't have to step
out from home and find a bank. Thus, a farmer doesn't lose the day's wages and
saves the money for commuting as well. Apart from CSR, there is a big potential
in rural areas, but the only problem is lack of access. However, we provide
facilities like core banking and financial inclusion at one's doorstep, and
mobile technology and GPRS transactions through mobile (m-banking), and
transactions through hand-held devices.

What is the current security solution you are using?

We have a virtual private network—SSL (internal connections) leased lines,
IT security, 3DES.

As the economy recovers the from the recession, what new
technology solutions are you thinking of introducing? How focused will the
investments be in terms of improving bottomlines?

As the economy recovers from the recession, some of the new technology
solutions we are looking at are core-banking, enterprise solutions,
collaborative and unified communications, educating employees through
e-learning, virtual classroom, unified/collaborated communications,
video/desktop conferencing. We are looking at improving communication for
employees and customers by means of video/Internet/email/website-all part of our
web to tech, interactive initiatives.

How big is bandwidth a constraint for you, when it comes
to connectivity and what are you doing to solve the problem?

Bank of India has been a leader in technology and believes in doing things
in a different fashion. Thus, we have 3,000 branches on a single enterprise
platform, and now we have financial inclusion which in effect means banking the
unbanked, or taking banking to remote areas. To popularize this, we are using
unified and collaborative technology in terms of knowledge portals, etc

In addition to brick and mortar branches, we offer ATM,
Internet, mobile banking and other facilities to customers, and now have five
sponsored RRBS (regional rural banks), where we are planning the implementation
of core-banking. This is in Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.
In some of these areas where there are infrastructure constraints, we connect
through VSAT or solar-powered UPS systems.

Bank of India won the Green Technology award for this in 2008
from CIO magazine. Thus, we are looking at expanding our reach through m-banking
for all transactions-big or small value transactions and m-commerce, and we are
tying up with aggregators for this.

Are you looking at vendor consolidation and planning to
renew and renegotiate contracts with your IT and network providers? How have
service level agreements (SLAs) changed over time with your vendors?

HP has been our vendor for the last ten years, while Cisco is our system
integrator, that provides core-banking solutions.

How have your IT and communication budgets changed over
the past one year?

There has been no change in the budget for IT and communications over the
past year.

What are the major challenges that you are facing as a
CIO/CTO in terms of technology/network constraints in your organization?

One of the main challenges is the huge network of banks and employees
scattered across the length and breadth of the country. We have around 40,000
employees, whom we need to train in education, chain management,
infrastructure-power, connecting in rural areas, and employee engagement.

Security is also another growing concern. We have implemented
the best solutions, but customers at times fall prey to hackers; thus, we are
trying to educate customers through informative websites, etc.

Beryl M

berylm@cybermedia.co.in