Talking about technology across industries would always include a special mention for the banking & financial segment and its enthusiasm in bringing new and extraordinary to streamline and excel. This discussion would also be incomplete without underlining the importance of the pandemic in promoting the digital transformation as an opportunity in disguise. Rashi Aditi Ghosh of Elets News Network (ENN) recently interacted with N. N. Subramanian, COO and Co-founder, Maveric Systems to understand how being a leading tech provider, Maveric Systems is building specific competencies around customer experience, regulatory compliance, digital operations, cloud, and analytics.
1. Digital transformation is now the priority of every BFSI organisation. How is Maveric Systems strategising it’s offerings to support the digital banking ecosystem?
Being solely focused on global as well as regional banking leaders and building mastery around addressing their challenges through continuous transformation of our services and solutions has been the secret of Maveric’s success. With the global economy coming out of the pandemic, digital transformation continues to lead the way, especially for the digital banking sector, which is predicted to reach a value of nearly $30.1 billion by 2026. A successful transformation of the digital banking ecosystem requires deep expertise across 3 key pillars namely, data engineering, digital engineering, and reengineering of the core. Towards this, we at Maveric Systems have been focusing on the following:
• Augmenting our multi-service competencies for the digital-first banking ecosystem through accelerated adoption of DevOps methodologies, CI/CD frameworks, SRE services, as well as the design of agile architectures by leveraging high-velocity engineering teams, cloud-native capabilities, APIs, and microservices. We have invested in building competency centers around agile, digital, big data, analytics, Temenos core platform, as well as Quality Engineering with the two-pronged objective of strengthening our differentiated talent with layered competency (tech-domain experts with product stack mastery) and building banking domain-specific solution accelerators and models for faster digital adoption.
• Shifting from creating technology solutions/tech stack focus to breakthrough business solutions addressing the most pressing CXO challenges in the digital banking space across customer experience, digital operations, cloud enablement, regulatory compliance, and connected core. To bring the right impetus to building these solutions, we have partnered with leading platforms like ServiceNow, Temenos, and Adobe and exploring partnerships with Microsoft Azure, Wolters Kluwer, and Axiom SL.
• Transforming our approach towards application development in the digital space through the Design-Develop-Run model focused on:
a) Integrating with an open financial ecosystem for creating superior customer experiences,
b) Achieving efficiencies of scale through the adoption of cloud-native architectures,
c) Achieving faster time to market through agile methodologies, and
d) Driving agility through a bimodal approach integrating legacy back end and digital front end.
2. What are your key focus areas in terms of digital banking in the next five years?
Our strategic aim is to be among the top 3 domain led, bank tech solution specialists transforming retail banking, corporate banking, and wealth management digital ecosystems by 2025. Towards this objective, we are focusing on the following areas.
Customer experience: Aimed at amplifying the banking customers’ experience across various lifecycle products and services in SME segments and wealth management. We are focused on co-creating solutions aimed at customer centricity, open systems, and human touch in retail banking; 360-degree customer view, ecosystem integration and hybrid interface in corporate banking and adoption of platform-centric approach with newer architecture, leveraging data as well as analytics in wealth management.
Digital Operations: Focused on DevSecOps for digital platforms, digital enablement of banking operations covering product, customer and enterprise functions, new technology and digital platforms built for real-time IT operations, data platforms to address real-time data requirements for customer service, management reporting and operations decision making as well as appropriate use of cloud.
Regulatory Compliance: Focused on co-creating solutions aimed at online transaction compliance across the four layers of KYC, CDD, Payment & Identity and Authentication Management, regulatory reporting as well as conventional AML validation. Our ready and build-to-suit data engineering, data quality, lineage, and reporting pipeline solutions integrate with various banking regulatory reporting frameworks, such as FINREP and COREP.
Also Read | Digital transformation has brought a new culture in the BFSI Industry
Connected Core: Aimed at seamlessly connecting/integrating core systems with Fintech ecosystems as well as financial marketplaces through ready-to-use developer networks and sandboxes, to drive rich digital banking experiences at speed and scale.
3. Are you planning expansion across the globe and India?
Maveric Systems have a presence across 15 countries with regional delivery capabilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Dubai, London, Poland, Pune, Riyadh, Singapore, and Dallas. We achieved revenues of around USD 67.8 million in FY 21-22 and intend to reach revenues of USD 175 million by 2025, with a CAGR of 30% y-o-y. We are the tech partner of choice for many of the top 15 banks and several regional banking leaders across the Middle East and the UK.
Our aim is to become a partner of choice for 6 of the top 15 global banks and 15 of the top 50 regional banks. Towards this, we have invested in dedicated structure, staffing, and processes to lead account-level growth agendas to actualize the growth potential and triple our revenues over the next 3 years. This involves expansion both in terms of talent as well as leadership. We are looking to scale our associate strength to 6000 by 2025.
We are also looking at expansion in terms of new account acquisition capabilities in Continental Europe and the US. We have adopted a customer segment-led approach to achieve our objective and are on the path to expanding our Go-to-Market structures and capabilities across these regions by bringing onboard leaders with deep expertise in banking technology pertaining to the region.
4. The pandemic has opened doors for hybrid/remote workforce. What are plans to next line of recruitments?
The traditional approach to attracting and retaining talent is changing as global businesses surge in recovery mode. This is evident from the fact that many organizations still witness resistance from new talent to attend in-person interviews and onboarding. The demand for flexibility is high, with hybrid/remote work options becoming default expectations. The concept of hybrid/remote work has become a worldwide norm, now referred to as Meaningful Work arrangements. Organizations are leveraging this norm of work to navigate the limitations of geographies and attract and hire talent from across locations.Employee Induction and Engagement have also taken a virtual route, including the corresponding tools and measures.
Keeping pace with changing expectations we are offering highly flexible options to our teams.
At Maveric Systems, we realise there is no one model to fit all and so are encouraging our leaders to pick the approach that would work best for their customer context and their business priorities.
Candidate engagement has become a critical component of the talent sourcing and recruitment process, in this virtual norm. Our associates work with potential candidates and go the extra mile to create an experience that best matches their personal and professional aspirations as well as comfort from the beginning. We follow a blended recruitment approach that involves virtual assessments, first-level interactions and in-person meetings to bring the right talent onboard. Insider View – our own candidate engagement event, helps potential candidates understand Maveric in depth, prior to joining, by directly engaging with CXO team members as we all as leaders across various business units, virtually. Our Connect & Listening sessions are our game changers, helping us understand and address challenges faced by new hires. These initiatives help us to ensure that new associates settle in well in their early days, can adapt better and thus experience a positive work culture.
5. How do we see you growing specifically in areas retail, corporate & wealth management?
Globally, private wealth and wealth management are being integrated to take advantage of the growing opportunity, as well as the need to enhance technology to meet the needs of the investors. The corporate segment has been buoyant, primarily due to the financial aid and assistance provided by many countries during the pandemic. There is growth within and outside the home markets. There is increased adoption of newer technologies, especially around blockchain, crypto, CBDC, and related digital assets.
Also Read | Building digital trust to achieve digital transformation
The retail segment is as vibrant as ever. The revolution in payments is continuing at a rapid pace. The marketplaces created in most instances within a country and in some cases in the regions are further pushing the boundaries of competitiveness.
We at Maveric Systems foresaw the trend early on and focused on building specific competencies around customer experience, regulatory compliance, digital operations, cloud, and analytics. We also started analysing the class and caliber of banks that would embark on a journey towards capitalising on these developments across Europe and the US. These have further helped us create specific use cases across key challenges in these segments. Our existing customers are appreciative of our insights and focus on these areas and are engaging with us more than usual to benefit from our insights. All these augurs well for us.
Furthermore, we also brought in sales leaders in these markets who have spent nearly 30 years serving bank institutions in technology sales across global and Indian offshore firms. They come with deep experience and connect to the class of institutions we target. This is showing up in the early wins that we have had.
Elets The Banking and Finance Post Magazine has carved out a niche for itself in the crowded market with exclusive & unique content. Get in-depth insights on trend-setting innovations & transformation in the BFSI sector. Best offers for Print + Digital issues! Subscribe here➔ www.eletsonline.com/subscription/
