Here’s How to Upgrade Your CBS with Effective Strategies

Very often, banks shy away from integrating advanced products like core banking solutions into their systems. Even if they don’t, most bankers associate the integration of modern technologies with escalated costs and enhanced risks. Core banking solutions are the core frameworks that are used to lodge all the withdrawals and deposits that the bank makes. As modern financial technology companies offer innovative applications, they are forcing banks to play catch-up. New-age CBS enables the execution of all tasks in real-time.

A fear that a migration mistake may sabotage all services the banks provide, always lurks in the background, even if they rationalize the need for a modern core banking solution. Traditional banks update their system only once a day and are far away from real-time capabilities.

The millennial generation, on the other hand, prefers everything top-notch and real-time when it comes to the services they use. They expect their banks to offer them enhanced control and mobility along with necessary facilities. A banker looking for a competitive edge in the market can effectively leverage or upgrade core banking solutions to offer an enhanced user experience.

Moreover, core banking solutions support the deposit collection and loan disbursement system at banks bridging incompatibilities, addressing compliance requirements, and increasing the overall productivity. As tech products become cheaper, the cost of upgrading to a more sophisticated CBS also decreases. Compared to the cost of churned customers and the risk of imminent system failures with a CBS that lags, the cost of upgrading seems nothing.

Here’s How to Upgrade your CBS with Effective Strategies

Data Cleanse Before Migration

Accurate and timely migration ensures an effective core banking system deployment and decommissioning of legacy systems. As banks gear up for their core banking transformation, they are faced with the challenges of migrating data from the existing to the new platform they choose. The process of data migration includes functions like data extraction, cleansing, transformation and mapping, and archiving the data. Since these functions incur expenses in the form of time and money, they must be handled with the utmost care.

Best practices include data cleansing before migration. Have the necessary information, especially account and customer data, in order. It’s best to cleanse the data in the old system so that the newly imported data into the incoming regime is of high quality and completely free of inconsistencies.

Stick to Timelines

Every essential business operation thrives on momentum, which is what makes sticking to schedules imperative. Plus, schedules drive the costs. Migrating or upgrading a CBS involves processes that are very complex & lengthy. CBS upgrades are massive when looked upon from scale, and losing schedules can hamper the project budget. Delay in the schedule of CBS transition can rise in the cost involved.

More than cost-effectiveness, sticking to timelines can improve and streamline decision making. Very often, big firms are plagued by the constant delay in crucial decision making due to the number of stakeholders involved. Having a strict schedule to follow has everyone adhering to timelines and streamlines the process. Sometimes it is feared that stringent deadlines lead to less-than-perfect decisions. However, it is perfectly alright to tidy up later rather than being on a never-ending quest of trying to build the perfect solution, to begin with.

Formulate a High-Level Decision-making Body 

A high-level decision-making body can easily arbitrate between different points of view within a business. Having a sort of working committee including the heads of operations, IT, retail banking, commercial banking and commercial lending that often meet to reach decisions that are final and binding, can end up in successful CBS upgrading.

This decision-making body must have ranking members from every possible department so that it can effectively settle any disputes or take final calls on any uncertainties from a wholesome perspective. These bodies execute sufficient conflict resolution and form a top-down view to outline the best way forward for the CBS transition.

Reusable Blueprints and Repeatable Employees

Every financial entity should treat a CBS migration process as a learning experience. They must record the set of methodologies, tools, and capabilities being used for migrating to or from any platform. Documenting structured processes including migrating checklists, command centre structures and all of the other changes needed to facilitate a cutover from one system to another can help them even post the success of the transition. These records can be leveraged during migrations that are executed later on as the entities reusing formerly created tools and runbooks, eventually improving them.

Further, while it may be demotivating for people to know that as soon as the project is done, they’re going to be cut-off, banks must instead invest in retraining the best existing staff on to the new system.

Conclusion

Upgrading a CBS is not all that easy, as it sounds. While a bank’s inherent ability to build new services satisfactorily within a reasonable timeframe to retain customers is limited, third party solutions offer a welcome recluse. The success of CBS upgrade depends on the choice of vendor and the assessment of the requirements of a bank. Picking out a provider who has lots of funding is beneficial since the process is likely to be expensive and time-consuming.

Further, it’s best to settle for a vendor who has experience in the fundamentals of core bank processing. Also, a CBS vendor’s ability to incorporate expansive business requirements can be a massive plus for financial entities. It is best to settle for a vendor that has a deep bench of implementation and support IT staffers and resources.

We hope these enhancement tips will help banks go ahead with replacing their existing Core Banking Solution with a new one. As a provider of Core Banking services and solutions, Finezza is well-versed with the concerns of various stakeholders when it comes to the implementation process. Banks can leverage core banking solutions and increase the number of customers they serve through better customer service. Multiple delivery channels like the internet, mobile banking, and ATMs, etc make them a one-stop solution for their clients.

If you’re a banker looking to change your current CBS, feel free to get in touch with us.