INDUSTRY WATCH
TRANSFORMATION
JOURNEY
For this month’s Industry Watch, Intelligent CIO speaks
to Gopi Krishnan, CIO, Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), about
the bank’s five-year enterprise architecture roadmap,
investment in satellite systems and the ‘Digital
Imperative’ in the banking and financial services sector.
C
an you describe recent ICT
project initiatives at QIB
and how they have better
served as a business purpose?
Over the last couple of years, QIB has
embarked on multiple technology initiatives
to keep pace with the rapid technology
advancements in the banking and financial
services space. We have established a fiveyear Enterprise Architecture Roadmap which
will strengthen IT’s alignment with business
strategy, optimise IT operating costs and
result in improved responsiveness of IT
Systems leveraging innovative solutions.
The bank has a 33 years old legacy of
customers and a core banking system,
which is 15 years old with infrastructure
and network almost five years old. We have
embarked on a transformation journey
(iCan Program), which includes a complete
revamp of its IT infrastructure landscape,
migrating into a new core banking
platform and consolidating various
legacy systems. The program currently in
advanced stages of UAT and scheduled to
go live in Feb. 2016 would enable the bank
to improve time to market of innovative
products; uplift the quality of customer
service; enhance and largely automate
operational processes guided by the latest
advancements of Enterprise Architecture
and Technology.
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We have invested significantly in recent
satellites systems to continuously
improve customer’s banking experience
like the introduction of Signature
Verification System to automate
digital signature capturing, storing and
auto verification of signatures, Debt
Collections System that records, monitors
and manages different delinquency
statuses of overdue customer positions
and Remote Cheque Deposit where the
corporate customers can scan received
cheques from their desktops and have
them cleared remotely. In addition we
have upgraded existing systems such as
Cards Management System, Enterprise
Content Management, AG Quantum and
Instant Card Issuance.
Almost 90% of the core infrastructure
stood in need of refresh. In an effort to
mitigate the risks associated with obsolete
and out-of-support technologies, a number
of the foundation components in the
IT infrastructure DC and/or DR (HSMs,
Websense, F5 Load Balancer, SAN Switches,
Enterprise Backup and iCAN Server Refresh)
have been successfully and smoothly
refreshed, solidifying the foundations of an
agile, resilient and scalable IT Infrastructure.
Fostering IT’s enablement of the Business
Continuity plans, the DRMS project has been
kicked off and is well underway.
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