Tech provider offers next-gen solution

Raja Gopalakrishnan, group managing director for FIS Asia and chief operating officer for FIS International.

FIS' TouchPoint facilitates bankers to manage multi-channel transactions

FIS, the global banking and payment-technology provider, aims to assist Thai finance to move into the next era of multi-channel payment with its latest technology called TouchPoint that will enable the financial sector to be ready to compete with Asean countries by 2015.

In the future, it is expected that most of the financial transactions will be done over the Internet. New technologies will allow people to engage in financial transactions over the Internet, especially using their mobile devices, leading to the migration of financial transactions from traditional channels to digital channels.

Raja Gopalakrishnan, group managing director for FIS Asia and chief operating officer of FIS International, said that these years are a time to challenge the financial sectors to move to the next step of providing payment services to deal with multi-channel payments according to consumers' behaviour, driven by the wide deployment of Internet-banking and mobile banking.

"The challenge is how to integrate any channel of payments, the online channels and the existing channels like bank counter, ATM, and counter services together seamlessly for consumers. Banks need the back-end system to manage every transaction of payments effectively," said Gopalakrishnan.

FIS has been providing core-banking systems to Thai bankers for two decades. About 75 per cent of banks in Thailand are running their financial transactions on FIS's core-banking system. The company has now expanded its business to offer a payment system called 'TouchPoint" to enhance payment services for Thai bankers.

TouchPoint was introduced in the Thai market two years ago, but due to the banks' investment cycle it has been around for 12 to 16 months. Now is the right time for banks to invest in new technologies for their payment solutions, he said.

He expected three banks in Thailand to implement FIS's TouchPoint solution in the next 12 to 24 months.

"Thailand is one of three countries in Asia we are focusing on, the other two being China and India. We have 250 professional staff in Thailand that work closely with our local partners to offer solutions that help bankers offer financial services efficiently," said Gopalakrishnan.

He added that recently, the company set up the Banking Centre of Excellence for Asia in Bangkok. It demonstrates banking and payment solutions from FIS to prospective customers throughout Asia.

"We chose to locate the centre of excellence in Bangkok as this is an important market for us. Here, we have the full-range of payment solutions to show to potential customers. "We have 250 well-trained staff to provide them guidance," said Gopalakrishnan.

In Thailand, FIS's solutions handle 2 million financial transactions a day.

"The future of banking is to serve [bank] account holders seamlessly when they can access all different channels. Bankers need to reduce their cost of providing services but at the same time increase efficiency," said Gopalakrishnan.

He said the trend in the banking and financial sector is to deal with the multi-channel management. FIS offers 'TouchPoint" to assist bankers manage transactions across channels, including ATM, cheque-clearing, credit card, debit card, prepaid card, Internet and mobile payment.

"Bankers need to optimise their payment services through the integration of traditional channels, including branch and ATM, with the new channels of payment like call centres and digital channels effectively. Payment transactions are moving to these channels," said Gopalakrishnan.

Thailand is a great market for FIS and the company has been rapidly growing in many years.

"Thailand is an absolutely key market for us in Asean today. This year, we expect to have growth of 10 per cent," said Gopalakrishnan.

But for the next couple years, he added the company aims to grow its business in Thailand higher than the growth of the country's gross domestic product.

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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/27/tech-provider-offers-next-gen-solution/