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Oracle Developing Industry Reference Model for Financial Services-Banking
Managing the complex business processes it takes to run a sophisticated financial services company today can be as confounding as driving through unfamiliar territory in the dark and without a map.
But what if financial services managers had the equivalent of a detailed roadmap and a global positioning system to guide them through the process maze?
That’s the idea behind Oracle’s ambitious effort to develop an industry reference model for banking leveraging i-flex’s deep domain expertise in the core banking arena.
This comprehensive offering intends to provide customers with documented representations of key business processes, including all the drill down tasks, activities, and technologies associated with each process. By providing a model for best practice financial services processes, Oracle’s Industry Reference Model for Financial Services-Banking could eventually help financial services companies change their IT systems as easily as experienced drivers change lanes.
“With this model and Oracle’s BPA Suite of tools, banks can refine their business processes and ask, ‘If I change something here, how will that impact my business elsewhere?” says Anita Brady, Oracle’s senior director of financial services product strategy.
Key differentiator
Eventually, the model will cover the full array of financial services business processes including not just the activities, but also the risks, controls, authorized roles, and, most importantly, the individual application services used by each process. It’s this last piece that will distinguish this model from other, more-abstract process models, Brady says.
“We will ultimately invoke the executables, for the Oracle family of software offerings such as Siebel, i-flex, Peoplesoft or eBusiness Suite from the business processes. “The model will point to application services that are most appropriate for that particular part of the process. Brady explains. “Additionally, customers could extend the model and leverage their exiting software assets as well.”
The model’s release date hasn’t been set, but so far Oracle have mapped over 1,000 banking business processes, ranging from planning and performance management, customer sales and service to wholesale and retail banking operations, and corporate administration and human capital management.
Instant Pain Relief through Pre-built Business Process Integrations
As part of its overall Application Integration Architecture (AIA) initiative, Oracle’s Process Integration Packs (PIPs) will be released for the financial services industry. Closely related to Industry Reference Models, the first financial services PIP – Oracle Process Integration Pack for Account Originations – Liabilities Products, will provide pre-built support for key account origination processes.
“The PIP won’t be merely a connector; it will support a series of end-to-end cross-application activities that comprise the overall macro process for account origination,” says Aubrey Hawes, director of industry strategy and marketing for Oracle’s Financial Services Global Business Unit.
The account origination PIP is designed to cover key business processes for relationship management and account opening, while also providing bank managers with a full view of customer profiles.
As more financial services PIPs arrive, banks can apply them to “those key business processes that are causing the most pain,” Hawes says. “Then they could look at how to streamline those processes and see if the necessary integrations already exist in the form of PIPs.”
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