Accelerating bank modernization at Money 20/20 USA

Hot laps, hot topics

Every year, Money 20/20 acts as a litmus test for the direction the global financial services industry is moving in. This year was no different, and several topics stole the spotlight.

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) and its uses within banking and financial services formed the crux of many conversations on the ground at Money 20/20. Kicking off proceedings on the first day was AWS and NVIDIA’s AI Summit, which explored “what AI really means for financial services” in a combination of keynote speeches and demos. The conversation continued throughout the event, with discussions on the implementation of AI in areas ranging from financial advice to anti-money laundering (AML). It is without doubt that AI is a crucial topic for the future of the industry, and NTT DATA is investing time and resources to stay ahead of the curve in this area.

Many speakers also addressed the shifting market conditions for fintechs and how this was affecting the industry at large. Perhaps more than any other driver, fintechs have pushed the industry to innovate and embrace emerging technologies. On top of this, the range of services offered by fintechs has led to an increase in customer demand for personalized and seamless access to their finances. However, as the economic conditions have grown more averse, the fintech space has certainly taken a hit. Regulation, partnerships and recruitment were all topics discussed in relation to the challenges faced by fintechs today. We discussed our Platea Banking solution in this context, which allows banks and fintechs to seamlessly connect.

Another major topic was Open Finance. At Money 20/20, the focus was in part centered on regional differences. One keynote, for example, focused on the Open Banking successes in LATAM, emphasizing how the US could follow the region’s lead in this area. Over the past few years, our focus with Open Banking has been to spread the successes we have had in Europe and LATAM across the globe, so this topic also resonated with our overall mission in Banking and Financial Services.

The road to fewer risks and faster results

Our objective for Money 20/20 North America 2023 was to announce a new suite of accelerators for core banking modernization to help banks minimize risks and improve speed to market. This announcement followed the launch of Bank 4x, NTT DATA’s unique six-pillar approach to financial services, in 2022.

The reality for banks is that core modernization is no longer a choice between sticking with legacy technology stacks or ripping and replacing with an entirely new core. Today’s core banking solutions have to meet banks wherever they are on their modernization journeys. We built our suite of accelerators on this exact principle.

The complete suite of accelerators includes:

• Transformation Manager:
  Catalogs and evaluates existing application assets and allows for strategic roadmap creation by both reducing manual efforts and project timelines. Enables strategic roadmap creation, "re-architecting" and harmonization of programing languages, data structures, BPM, Workflows into preferred end formats, business rule inspection and re-use.
• UniKix:
  A Mainframe Application Re-hosting tool that helps migrate the mainframe and secondary applications to a virtualized data center or public cloud platform that significantly increases costs savings and preserves all business logic. Mitigates technology stack risks (e.g. obsolete products, non-conformance to tech standards), catalogues and evaluates applications providing real-time application health data.
• Application Re-Architecture:
  Application Re-Architecture is a re-engineering solution that assists in transforming legacy application environments by addressing business processes, the application, and the underlying data structures. The Application Re-Architecture solution includes legacy system discovery, modernized system design, and iterative build & test development sprints.
• Data Cataloger:
  The Data Cataloger analyzes all the source objects needed for data migration – like databases, tables, keys, etc. – and migrates the objects analyzed from source to target, such as Snowflake.
• Data Migrater:
  The Data Migrater seamlessly migrates data from Source to destination. It can use both ODBC and a file-based approach to extract the data. The pipeline can be configured using simple YAML files.
• Data Validator:
  The Data Validator validates the data migrated using sampling capabilities, has configurable hash functions to find differences and unmatched records are stored in platforms like Snowflake for quick redressal.
• NuCAF:
  Provides a framework that includes a set of repeatable, measurable and industry-standardized processes, procedures, architectures, and governance models that assist with a client's adoption of hyperscale clouds.
• Platea Banking:
  Platea Banking is a composable banking solution that accelerates time-to-market and de-risks enablement of new products and services for financial institutions worldwide. The platform supports NTT DATA clients in their dual objectives for digital transformation – transforming the core business through progressive modernization as well as launching new growth initiatives through a greenfield technology stack.
• CloudART:
  Assists with providing organizations the best fit for their applications in the cloud using automated tools that help with scanning code, cloud deployment, and application management. Helps address aspects of a cloud transformation, including remediation, migration, and cloud-native application development.

Driving acceleration to the future

As always, the question for us is what lies beyond. As innovation and emerging technology continue to drive the industry forward, banks modernizing their core need a way to de-risk and deliver faster results. Our suite of accelerators provides banks with a toolkit to do just that.

Looking ahead, we will continue to establish our position as specialists in execution and as an end-to-end partner that will drive innovation at any stage of the journey to modernization. We’re also constantly innovating, staying ahead of global trends to provide cutting-edge solutions before they’re needed.

To find out more about our new suite of accelerators, click here:
https://us.nttdata.com/en/engage/core-banking-modernization-accelerators