Oracle Reveals Key Elements of Its Financial Services Strategy

Oracle is offering new details about the objectives that will shape its ongoing financial-industry road map, a financial services strategy that has attracted the world’s top 10 banks to run Oracle Applications.

New facets surfaced during Oracle's announcement in April that the board of i-flex solutions Ltd., creator of the FLEXCUBE Core Banking system, approved a plan to change the company’s name to Oracle Financial Services Limited, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals. Oracle currently owns 81 percent of the Mumbai, India-based company.

Oracle's overarching strategy for financial services will continue to draw on its own and Oracle Financial Services Limited’s domain expertise in the financial services industry coupled with world-class software development and support experience, according to Charles Phillips, Oracle president and i-flex director.

He calls Oracle Financial Services Limited "a focal point for Oracle's investment in innovation and leadership in financial services."

Other elements that fill out this strategy include the ability to offer integrated and best-of-breed business solutions for banking, capital markets, and insurance. "We have preintegrated these applications to enable end-to-end business processes and the integrations are built, maintained, and upgraded by Oracle," says Rajesh Hukku, Oracle Financial Services Limited's chairman and general manager of the Oracle Financial Services Global Business Unit.

The business-process-oriented approach helps financial services companies align IT initiatives with business requirements for an evolutionary transformation of the IT infrastructure, he adds. "We're saying that in a transformational model, why can't the bank look at its account-opening process, for example, as one standard process across the board?" Hukku explains.  

Rounding out the strategy are commitments to open systems and industry standards, as well as an ongoing effort to seek customer input into product strategy and directions. To do this, Oracle announced late last year the launch of the Oracle Banking Industry Strategy Council, a group of senior IT executives from leading banking institutions that is sharing its collective insight to help drive Oracle's strategy for the banking industry. Among the charter members are Allied Irish Banks p.l.c. (AIB), Barclays Bank PLC, ING Groep N.V., National Australia Bank Limited, and Rabobank Group.