Innovating with

PREFACE
Banks in the digital era have to perform to extremely high standards. Never have customer expectations
been so vast, or varied. The same can be said for competition, with some of the biggest banking successes
in recent times having non-banking antecedents. To survive and thrive amidst unprecedented pressure,
traditional banks need to transform themselves with technology, and all players should innovate regularly.

While most banks recognize this truth, a few have progressed quickly to take a clear lead over their rivals.
Every year, the Infosys Finacle Client Innovation Awards program felicitates banks that have launched
outstanding innovations and initiatives in different categories in the past twelve months. This year’s
nominations span rich innovations that particularly appeal to new-generation customers. The list includes
among others, customer service initiatives that have helped a bank own the experience journey, process
innovations delivering widespread efficiencies, comprehensive digital transformations and path breaking
open banking implementations.

The awards not only recognize the achievements of the winners but also enable other banks around the
world to draw learning and inspiration from their experiences. Receiving more than 250 entries, the Infosys
Finacle Client Innovation Awards 2019 celebrate the heightened focus on innovation and customer value in
the banking industry. It is both a privilege and a pleasure to present them to you through this compilation.

Sanat Rao
Chief Business Officer & Global Head,
Infosys Finacle
Table of contents
Standard Bank transforms the branch banking experience.....................................................................................................6

Royal Bank of Scotland digitizes KYC using blockchain.............................................................................................................8

Santander UK digitizes its international cash management system.....................................................................................10

Paytm Payments Bank – building a digital first bank for India................................................................................................12

Emirates NBD – consolidating its technology platform across the group...........................................................................14

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait (ABK) capitalizes on the true potential of a digital engagement suite....................................16

Emirates NBD launches the first API sandbox in UAE..................................................................................................................18

RAKBANK eliminates friction in international remittance process with RAKMoneyTransfer........................................20

Punjab National Bank overhauls its technology infrastructure...............................................................................................22

Federal Bank initiates open banking platform..............................................................................................................................24

Bank Rakyat Indonesia disrupts the unsecured loans market with a digital solution.....................................................26

ICICI bank pioneers a blockchain network for remittances from India to Canada...........................................................28

Kotak Mahindra reaps the API banking advantage.....................................................................................................................30

Nations Trust Bank - Sri Lanka’s open API banking leader.........................................................................................................32

RBL Bank reimagines the customer journey with a world class digital engagement hub............................................34

Australian Military Bank – Cloud based digital transformation...............................................................................................36

 STANDARD BANK
TRANSFORMS THE BRANCH
BANKING EXPERIENCE
Profile
Established in 1862, Standard Bank is one of the leading banks in Africa today, with
a market capitalization of US$ 23 billion and assets with US$ 2 trillion in assets.
The Bank has a presence in 18 countries across Southern Africa.

Elevating the customer
experience at the branch
In a market that has rapidly changing customer demands,
being agile is a top priority for Standard Bank. Since
the branch is still an important channel, the Bank set
out to understand what kind of in-branch experiences
its customers desired. Expectations included faster
turnaround time, single window clearance for multiple
types of transactions, paperless banking, and contextual
experiences that were simple for both customers and the
tellers who served them.
The Bank realized that it would be able to fulfill these
expectations only by transforming its branch operations
according to digital principles. It was also clear that
employee experience had to elevated in order to improve
customer experience.
for staff. The idea was to digitally empower the tellers
in every branch to make the banking experience quick,
easy, and contextual for customers. The Bank decided
to implement the solution in five countries – Malawi,
Zambia, eSwatini, Lesotho and Zimbabwe – that were
already running their entire operations on multi-tenant
infrastructure for Finacle, with the sensible approach of
unifying and transforming the processes across this region
in one go. The Bank also decided to leverage the Finacle
Digital Engagement Hub so it would be able to offer a
consistent experience to customers in all five countries and
build a variety of API-led use cases that branch staff could
utilize to serve customers.
The implementation was the first of its kind in the group
and was also among the first to run fully on a modern,
completely open source technology stack built on Jboss,
Linux and next generation infrastructure.

Transforming the branch

banking experience
After a detailed evaluation, Standard Bank selected Finacle
Mobile Teller, a web-based branch banking mobile solution

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Business Benefits
In a matter of 22 weeks, 107 branches were brought on board, at the rate of 1 branch
per day. The impact was remarkable.

Transaction turnaround time shortened by 40 percent by making only the required

screens and process flows available on mobile devices

32 manual branch processes were digitized

The capacity of existing branch resources increased by 37 percent

Branch operating costs reduced by 14 percent

At the same time, the experience of customers and tellers improved dramatically

Branch processes became so much simpler that the time needed to train staff came
down from 1 week to a mere 2 hours

“2018 has been a year of many firsts for Standard Bank in Africa Regions but these milestones and
tremendous accolades we have received cannot be underestimated. They are without a doubt
attributable to many years of work, focus and a continuous crafting of our Digital vision into the DNA of
our people so that together we can build the Digital Bank that matters to both our staff and customers”.

Adrian Vermooten, Personal and Business Banking - Africa regions,

Standard Bank

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 ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
DIGITIZES KYC USING
BLOCKCHAIN
Profile
Established way back in 1727, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has many firsts
to its credit, including the world’s first overdraft and the first full-fledged Internet
banking service. Today, it serves about 1.8 million personal customers and
110,00 business customers from a distribution network that includes 20 mobile
branches.

RBS – One group, many banks
Natwest is part of the RBS Group. The Bank serves a total
of 14 million customers, which includes personal, private
and business banking customers in England and Wales and
large corporates in Western Europe.
Also part of the RBS Group is Coutts. Established in 1692,
Coutts offers private and commercial banking services. As
at December 2017, the Bank managed client assets worth
£61.9 billion.
Many banks, single presence
Currently, customers of more than one bank in the Group
have to deal with each separately. Since the information
sent to one bank is not automatically available to the others,
customers end up duplicating processes and paperwork.
The root of the problem is a legacy KYC process that is very
complex and involves a multitude of systems, resulting in a
suboptimal experience for customers.
banking entities, right from the onboarding stage. A few
months ago, they approached Infosys with a request to
make KYC/identity management a shared service among
three banks, namely, RBS, Natwest and Coutts. Infosys
leveraged Finacle Digital Identity Connect to conduct
a Blockchain-based pilot to centralize KYC processes
and documentation using a distributed ledger. Once a
customer shared a set of documents, it was available
to each of the three entities on-demand. Importantly,
everything was controlled, transparent and auditable,
because the ledger automatically kept a record of each
instance and purpose of use.
En route to production
The pilot project, which was completed within 3 months,
produced a solution that was ready for adoption. RBS is
now contemplating taking it to production. If that happens,
it will be another first for RBS, which will become the first
bank to collaborate with Infosys for Blockchain-based KYC.

The RBS Group wanted to transform this by projecting

a single, unified presence to their customers across

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 Royal Bank
of Scotland

Common Other
NatWest KYC entities..

Coutts

Traditional KYC process: KYC process with Blockchain:

• 
Duplication of KYC process, across institutions, • Speed of Onboarding
region or country
• Real-time Updates
• Physical document management
• Customer Experience
• High risk of fraud and impersonation
• GDPR Compliance
• Low authentication and authorization
• KYC as a service

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 SANTANDER UK DIGITIZES
ITS INTERNATIONAL CASH
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Profile
Santander UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Banco Santander, offers a wide range of
retail, commercial and corporate banking products and services. As of 31 March 2018,
the Bank had 19,500 employees and about 14 million active customers, including
31,000 corporate clients that it served through a nationwide branch network and
other channels such as phone, mobile and Internet.

Cashing in on cash flows across accounts to minimize interest payout and

management
In the U.K., Santander was up against large banks with
longstanding relationships with corporate clients. Since it
was very cumbersome for large companies to switch banks,
Santander UK knew that the only way it could attract clients
was by providing an up-market proposition. This approach
had helped it win market share in the trade finance
segment, and the Bank wanted to replicate that success in
cash management.
Large corporates with multi-country operations and
multiple banking relationships find it very challenging
to view and manage their cash balances across all their
accounts in different banks and geographic locations.
The challenge is compounded by the fact that the cash
position is constantly changing as money flows in and out
of the accounts. Santander UK saw this as an opportunity
to differentiate itself. It approached Infosys for help with
creating a solution that would not only provide corporates
visibility into their cash balances, but also optimize fund
maximize interest income.
One treasury, one view
The Bank licensed Finacle Online Banking, Omnichannel
Hub, Payment Solution and Liquidity Management
Solution, to enable corporate clients extract bank balances
across accounts in the U.K. and elsewhere into a “treasury
view”. Finacle also provided corporate treasurers with
various tools to manage, forecast and move cash easily,
as well as the option to design the rules for automatically
moving funds between accounts. It was possible to initiate
payment through any account using a variety of options,
such as SWIFT, FPS, SEPA, etc. What’s more, treasurers could
perform all these operations from a unified dashboard.
The entire platform was delivered on an in-house cloud
deployment in the U.K. Now, Santander UK has a superior
service that they could leverage to attract prospective
clients, while increasing stickiness among existing.

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One solution, many advantages
There were other benefits too.
Thanks to Finacle, Santander UK can also see an aggregated
view of corporate customers’ balances across multiple
accounts and their liquidity positions across the Santander
Banking Group.
The solution enables rapid payment innovations and
manage changes on demand.
Companies could use the solution’s open APIs to embed
cash management services within their own ERP
applications.
By being available on the cloud, the solution speeded
up time to market, and improved both efficiency and
scalability.
Commenting on the implementation, Bart Timmermans,
Head of Global Transaction Banking (GTB), Santander UK,
said, “Using Finacle solutions, Santander will provide our
corporate customers a single point of access to better
manage their interbank global commercial cash flow
conveniently and securely. It represents a significant
part of GTB UK’s channel strategy, helping to prepare
the bank for its shift towards serving its digitally enabled
corporate clients.”
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 PAYTM PAYMENTS BANK –
BUILDING A DIGITAL FIRST
BANK FOR INDIA
Profile
Paytm Payments Bank is India’s only mobile-first bank with zero balance - zero
digital transaction charge accounts. The Paytm Payments Bank was officially
inaugurated in November 2017. The bank is all set to launch over 100,000
banking outlets across India.

Evolving from a digital wallet

to a bank
After leading one of the largest and most competitive
mobile wallet markets in the world, India’s Paytm is looking
to repeat its success as Paytm Payments Bank (PPB). With
42 million savings accounts and growing, PPB is by far, the
largest payments bank in the country.

A bank for everything,

a bank for all
The Bank’s proposition is two fold – to engage India’s digital
savvy population with a mobile-first offering, and provide a
savings bank account to those who are outside the financial
bracket. In doing so, Paytm also encourages them to buy
variety of products and services from its marketplace and
merchant network. It is relying on the Finacle Open API
Core Banking Platform to make this happen.

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It’s all about innovation
Among PPB’s most innovative offerings are a simple savings bank
deposit that can be opened online by KYC-cleared customers; NACH,
a tool from NPCI for registering interbank mandates and standing
instructions online without needing to visit the bank in person; and
corporate payouts for specific purposes, such as meal purchases,
that companies can make out to employees using an auxiliary
mobile wallet from Paytm Payments Bank. The corporate payouts’
advantages include perpetual validity and complete traceability of
spending.
A notable channel innovation is the use of business correspondents
– typically, opinion leaders from the local community – to clear
KYC and onboard the unbanked, collect and deposit cash, and also
process payments.

“We, at Paytm Payments Bank, provide various facilities to our customers like savings account, current
account, automatic fixed deposits through sweep out, digital debit cards etc. We have ensured that
these banking services are available to customer at any time, any place, in consumer’s language
and on their mobile phones itself. All our initiatives have been taken to fulfill our vision of financial
inclusion. Our core banking system is provided by Infosys Finacle and we are happy that the jury at
Client Innovation Awards have selected us as finalists in various award categories. We continue to work
towards our endeavor of bringing half a billion Indians to mainstream economy and we are looking
forward to the journey ahead to achieve this goal.”

Satish Kumar Gupta, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Paytm Payments Bank

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 EMIRATES NBD –
CONSOLIDATING ITS
TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM
ACROSS THE GROUP
Profile
Formed in 1963, Emirates NBD is the leading banking group in its region. As at 31st
December 2018, the Group’s total assets amounted to about US$ 136 billion. Emirates
NBD has operations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Singapore,
and the United Kingdom and representative offices in China and Indonesia. Currently,
the Group employs more than 9,000 people, representing 70 nationalities.

Emirates NBD and Finacle – long
time partners
The relationship between Emirates NBD and Finacle goes
back more than 10 years. In 2007, the Bank transformed
its foundation with Finacle Core Banking, and since then
has implemented a number of solutions with Finacle in its
home and overseas markets, including Finacle Liquidity
Management, a lifestyle digital bank called Liv runs on
Finacle Core Banking Solution, and a Blockchain network
for international remittances with
ICICI Bank.
The latest Finacle, everywhere
As Emirates NBD grew organically and through acquisition,
it brought every new operation onto the Finacle platform.
But while all the entities ran on Finacle, they were on
different versions. This became an obstacle when the Bank
rolled out new functionality.
The Bank decided to bring all seven country operations,
starting with Singapore, on to the latest version of Finacle
to benefit from componentized deployment, minimal
customization and an agile technology stack.
The implementation leveraged a scaled Agile framework
and concepts, such as “Just in Time” and “Lean”. This
approach shortened project timelines by allowing
development to start early and execution and testing
to proceed in parallel. Automated Functional Testing
ensured adequate coverage of business processes as
well as thorough use case testing. Finacle infrastructure
was provisioned using an IaaS model to facilitate quick
turnaround of project demands related to infrastructure,
and to enhance the scalability and resilience of the
production instance.
One platform, many benefits
By unifying Finacle across the Group, Emirates NBD has
lowered total cost of ownership and time to market.
Operational processes are now standardized to allow all
users to enjoy the same experience. Features, such as secure
layered network zoning and a web application firewall,
provide robust security and also protection against data
loss. The Bank will reuse components developed during the
successful Singapore execution in the subsequent phases
of the project.

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 AL AHLI BANK OF KUWAIT
(ABK) CAPITALIZES ON THE
TRUE POTENTIAL OF A
DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT SUITE
Profile
Founded in 1967, Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait (ABK) offers a range of retail and
corporate banking services in Kuwait, Egypt and the U.A.E. It has 31 branches
in Kuwait, 2 full service branches and 1 wholesale banking branch in the U.A.E.,
and 40 branches in Egypt after its acquisition of Piraeus Bank in 2015.

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A burden of legacy
Despite being a highly respected bank and a leader
in its home market, Al Ahli Bank Kuwait was unable
to match the growing expectations of its customers.
At the heart of the problem lay a highly fragmented
operational and IT landscape featuring no less than 79
legacy applications. The Bank came to the realization
that it would have to drastically simplify operations
in order to stay relevant in the digital age. That meant
rationalizing its IT applications as well.
One suite for all applications
A detailed search led the Bank to Infosys, who had both
the ideal platform in the Finacle suite of solutions, and a
wealth of implementation experience at banks around
the world. In January 2016, ABK awarded Infosys the
mandate to roll out the entire Finacle Digital Engagement
suite, comprising the Digital Engagement Hub, and
Online and Mobile Banking, with Finacle Core Banking as
the underlying layer, in Kuwait and subsequently, in the
other countries where it was present.
In a comprehensive engagement, Infosys replaced all
79 disparate applications with the Finacle suite. With the
client’s “simpler banking” objective in mind, the team
implemented unique and innovative features to spur
digital banking growth, including but not limited to, Global
View, a first-in-the-market facility leveraging the Digital
Engagement Hub that gave customers a unified view of
accounts across Kuwait, the U.A.E. and Egypt with a single
log in; Pay/Pull Me; mobile/online enabling bill sharing
among friends; and Cardless Cash Withdrawal at ATMs and
branches using mobile/online banking.
An experience of “firsts”
With the first rollout in October 2017, ABK was able
to deliver a completely refreshed and contemporary
experience to customers, backed by speed and flexibility
of service. The Bank became the leading provider in
Kuwait for features such as cardless withdrawal, biometric
authentication for Android and Apple devices, face ID-
based authentication, and biometric capabilities supporting
instant payments. In addition, the Bank could target more
offerings, such as Foreign Exchange, to customers, and
more promotions on digital channels. These were on top
of “regular” features, such as real-time access to accounts,
funds management, online loan application, etc.
Quantitatively speaking, after the Finacle implementation,
ABK was able to:
• Improve adoption of digital banking services by 75
percent
• Roll out new services on digital channels is now
33 percent faster
• Increase digital channel transactions by 62.5 percent
• Reduction in time to complete a digital interaction, such
as account opening, by 50 percent
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 EMIRATES NBD LAUNCHES
THE FIRST API SANDBOX
IN UAE
Profile
Formed in 1963, Emirates NBD is the leading banking group in its region. As
at 31st December 2018, the Group’s total assets amounted to about US$ 136
billion. Emirates NBD has operations in the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, India, Singapore, and the United Kingdom and representative offices in
China and Indonesia. Currently, the Group employs more than 9,000 people,
representing 70 nationalities.

Emirates NBD leads the Open
Banking Race
Being a highly progressive bank, Emirates NBD has always
stayed on top of global trends. As banking becomes
increasingly open and banks embrace the platform
model, Emirates NBD is leading the change in its region. In
November 2018, it became the first UAE Bank to launch an
API sandbox to pursue open banking collaboration with
partners, such as FinTech firms and developers.
Initial success
The Bank has started with about 200 APIs, and onboarded
4 FinTech partners who will use them to create proofs of
concept. Developers will have access to 3 million customer
simulated transactions to validate the suitability of the
ideas and use cases created in the sandbox for a production
environment. They will also be able to create working
prototypes for testing with the Bank’s customers.
A registry is provided to help developers and other users
to quickly discover the APIs available along with their
purpose, data structure, performance capabilities and
usage guidelines. There is an API gateway for allowing,
monitoring and managing access that also offers detailed
usage analytics.
The way forward
Emirates NBD’s API sandbox will amplify and accelerate the
Bank’s ability to innovate with its ecosystem of employees,
external partners, academic institutions and small and
medium enterprises, and cement its position as an
innovation leader in the UAE.
Abdulla Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer at
Emirates NBD says, “Our focus is to co-create and build new
business models that offer pioneering solutions, all the
while bringing new and differentiated experiences to our
customers and employees.”

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“Emirates NBD is proud to receive these awards from Infosys Finacle. This reflects the continued success
of the bank’s digitisation agenda and our steadfast commitment to continuously improving our IT
applications, architecture and cloud capabilities to drive internal IT agility and operational efficiency,
while providing the best digital innovation for our customers.”

Abdulla Qassem, Group Chief Operating Officer at Emirates NBD

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 RAKBANK ELIMINATES
FRICTION IN INTERNATIONAL
REMITTANCE PROCESS WITH
RAKMONEYTRANSFER
Profile
RAKBANK or the National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah is one of the oldest and most
dynamic banks in the U.A.E. In 2001, 25 years after it was founded, the Bank
shifted its focus from corporate banking to personal and business banking. Today,
it offers a variety of retail and business banking services through a network of
38 branches, and electronic channels.

Great product, not so great
experience
Remittances are a very important segment of the
banking business in the U.A.E., which is home to 9.5
million expatriates looking to send about US$ 160
billion home every year. While RAKBANK was very
competitive in this segment, both in terms of cost and
speed, it had only managed to take a minuscule share
of the market. The problem was that people who were
not RAKBANK customers found it very cumersome to
transfer money through the Bank. They were required
to fill out a form, provide extensive documentation,
including their Emirates Identity Card and passport, and
wait while the Bank did a check to weed out duplicate
accounts or blacklisted persons. This process itself took
two to three days.
RAKBANK spots an opportunity
RAKBANK recognized a crying need for a dramatically
improved remittance experience, free of all friction.
Leveraging the Finacle Omni Channel Hub and its
partnership with EZMCOM, Xpress Money and InPay, the
Bank introduced a digital remittance mobile app, called
RAKMoneyTransfer (RMT) that allowed anyone – even
those who did not bank with it – to download and onboard
themselves within minutes. The entire process, from
scanning identity documents and passports to submitting
biometric information to completing e-KYC formalities,
as well as bank-initiated activities, such as digitization of
documents and background check, could be completed
online within 3 minutes, without any physical verification.
Once on-boarded and issued a wallet that they could fund
digitally from any bank or card account, people could send
remittances to 35 countries in real-time.
Optimism in the air
With obstacles to onboarding out of the way, thanks to
the RMT app, RAKBANK is fully set to take its competitive
remittance product to the market. It is confident that its
winning proposition of low forex charges and a great
user experience will enable it to acquire 4.5 million
customers, if not more.

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 PUNJAB NATIONAL
BANK OVERHAULS
ITS TECHNOLOGY
INFRASTRUCTURE
Profile
Punjab National Bank (PNB) is a 124-year-old Public Sector Bank, and is part
of the PNB Group, India’s second largest multinational banking and financial
services corporation. PNB has a massive presence of about 7,200 branches,
including 5 overseas, and 150 million customers.

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A comprehensive transformation
Running mainly on Finacle Core Banking version 7, the
PNB operation is the largest Finacle instance in the world,
supporting 70 TB of data and 14 million daily transactions.
In order to support its growth aspirations, the Bank realized
the need to upgrade to the latest version of Finacle’s Core
Banking System to be more agile, API-first and in sync with
the demands of the digital age.
Agile everywhere
The teams from the Bank and Finacle jointly decided to take
the Agile route through and through – from implementation
to delivery. For instance, when the system had to be specially
configured to suit PNB’s unique demands, the customization
was done in an Agile manner in multiple sprints. Training of
more than 70,000 users spread across 7,200 branches was also
accomplished using Agile techniques and digital tools, with
computer based training followed by classroom instruction. A
cloud-based environment with data from 10 branches was set
up to give users hands-on experience on the new system.
60 Terabyte of data which included 7800 branches,
130 million customers and 200 million accounts, was
migrated in Agile fashion. After the transition, the new system
was tested for quality and integration using data from a clutch
of branches. Implementation of the solution in PNB branches
was also staggered in accordance with Agile principles, with a
few hundred branches brought on board each day for a total
duration of 2 weeks.
Not just another upgrade
Another notable aspect of the implementation was that the
system was configured for 3 databases, considering the size
of the Bank’s data. Single sign-on was configured on one
database, signature verification on another and CRM and core
banking on the third.
This implementation also stood out from routine core
banking upgrades, in that it added 26 new channels
and interfaces, and several new capabilities such as easy
integration with internal and external ecosystem applications
and Aadhaar-based biometric authentication. What’s more,
everything was accomplished within the allotted timeline,
thanks to exemplary program management by the teams
involved.
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 FEDERAL BANK INITIATES
OPEN BANKING PLATFORM
Profile
Federal Bank Limited is a major Indian commercial bank in the private sector
headquartered at Aluva, Kerala having more than thousand branches and ATMs
spread across different States in India. The Bank is a pioneer among traditional banks
in India in the area of using technology to leverage its operations. The Bank offer its
customers, a variety of services such as Internet banking, Mobile banking, on-line
bill payment, online fee collection, depository services, Cash Management Services,
merchant banking services, insurance, mutual fund products and many more as part
of its strategy to position itself as a financial super market and to enhance customer
convenience

Staying open is staying relevant
When banking turned increasingly digital, and then
open, Federal Bank looked for ways to stay relevant by
participating in the larger financial services ecosystem. The
Bank realized it was necessary to be open to innovation
with external partners, and also to crowdsourcing.
Needed, a brand new API store
Unfortunately, the Bank’s existing infrastructure did not
make it easy for partners to integrate with its services.
Every API needed to be approved at several levels, which
increased the turnaround time for integration while limiting
scalability. Crucially, there was no framework for engaging
with partners or for ensuring governance of APIs.
Federal Bank decided to remedy the situation by building a
new API store leveraging the IBM API Connect gateway and
functional APIs from Infosys Finacle. The outermost layer is
a web portal with sandbox testing and a list of all the APIs
on offer. Sandbox testing enables users to easily test the
APIs from their platforms, before conducting end-to-end
testing, from security to functional scenarios, on a separate
full-fledged testing platform. Due diligence, security audit
and execution of the agreement are conducted in parallel,
before allowing users access to production APIs.
The store delivers
The new API store, which is one of the best in the country,
gives users, be they FinTech firms, developers or corporate
clients, convenient access to APIs and their documentation,
while the sandbox allows prototyping and validation.
Other benefits include quick turnaround, scalability,
easy management of APIs and partners, automated API
creation and runtime management, robust security and the
potential to improve revenue and productivity. Currently,
Google Pay, MatchMove, Airtel and Cointab are some of
the Bank’s clients that have connected to the API store and
integrated various processes and services. A remarkable
achievement is that 1/6th of India’s total inward remittances
are now processed through Federal Bank APIs.
Besides playing to its traditional strength, namely the
remittance business, the Bank is also pursuing innovation
partnerships in digital lending and payments to offer APIs
for account information, payment and collection, new
account opening and virtual accounts.

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“Federal Bank is a pioneer in path-breaking digital innovations and efficiently utilizes technology
to meaningfully leverage its operations. Over the years, the Bank has transformed itself into a
technologically innovative organization that offers services beyond par. ‘Digital at the Fore, Human
at the Core’ has been one of our guiding mantras in our endeavor to create delightful customer
experiences. In partnership with Infosys, the Bank has been able to create several innovative financial
products and this award from Infosys recognizes one of such products. We will continue to raise the bar
and script new success stories on the wings of technology.”

Shalini Warrier, Chief Operating Officer, Federal Bank

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 BANK RAKYAT INDONESIA
DISRUPTS THE UNSECURED
LOANS MARKET WITH A
DIGITAL SOLUTION
Profile
Incorporated in 1895, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) is one of the largest state-
owned banks in Indonesia. It is also among the country’s most innovative
financial institutions.
Pioneering digital lending
Bank Rakyat recently introduced the first digital lending
solution in Indonesia, whose underserved market, young
population, high mobile penetration and expanding
middle class provided the ideal conditions for such an
offering.
The solution targets borrowers in need of small, unsecured
loans (up to IDR 20 million) for personal and business
requirements. Because it is so cumbersome to obtain such
loans from the formal banking system, most people end up
going elsewhere. Spotting a clear opportunity, BRI crafted
a digital lending solution leveraging Finacle Lending and
the Finacle Digital Engagement Hub that automated the
end-to-end lending process and issued the loan in just
10 minutes.
One Hub does it all
The Hub became the single point of contact for managing
customer interaction. Customers seeking a loan were
asked to download a mobile application and provide the
required information to the Bank. The Digital Engagement
Hub, which integrated with 10 systems involved in loan
processing, including Silverlake for customer account
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enquiry, CAMS for customer management, Whitelist,
Element for e-KYC, Privy for digital signature and document
signing, Finacle Core for CIF and loan account maintenance,
an SMS aggregator for delivering OTP, an OCR system for
e-KTP, and a credit scoring system, orchestrated them all to
take a decision and if favorable, issue the loan; the entire
process was completed in 10 minutes. The loan itself was
affordable, came with a flexible tenure, and was directly
disbursed to the borrower’s account.
This was the first time that any bank in Indonesia offered
an end-to-end and fully automated loan processing. The
bank was also the first to use e-KYC and digital signature
to authenticate customers. An interesting feature of the
implementation was that the Bank chose to leverage the
componentized structure of Finacle to only build what it
needed without touching its other systems.
Big plans
BRI, which is mainly targeting blue-collar workers, expects
to issue 275,880 loans this year, 643,760 loans in 2020 and
1.1 million loans in the year after. While these numbers
are impressive, what is more important is that the Bank is
taking a lead in digitally disrupting the market, rather than
waiting for a FinTech or challenger bank to do it.
“With the presence of Pinang, Bank BRI Group is able to reach more volumes of customers in Indonesia
at high speed (from application to disbursement in less than 10 minutes without a face to face
meeting). Pinang is BRI’s radical innovation catering to ultra-micro customers creating a seamless and
economical on-boarding process. The reimagined process provides a faster, cheaper and safer digital
lending in Indonesia. With the persistent support of the Infosys management and the robust Infosys
Finacle digital banking suite, BRI’s vision of accelerating Indonesia financial inclusion is one step closer.”

Kaspar Situmorang, Executive Vice President,

Digital Center of Excellence, Bank Rakyat Indonesia

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 ICICI BANK PIONEERS A
BLOCKCHAIN NETWORK
FOR REMITTANCES FROM
INDIA TO CANADA
Profile
Besides being India’s largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank is also one of the
most innovative financial institutions in the world. On 31st March 2018, the
Bank had total consolidated assets of US$ 172.5 billion, and a profit after tax
of US$ 1.0 billion for the financial year. ICICI Bank’s network includes 4,867
branches and 14,367 ATMs across 17 countries.

First off the Blockchain
In October 2016, ICICI Bank became the first bank in India
to launch, in partnership with Emirates NBD and Finacle,
a Blockchain-based network for international remittances
and trade finance. The Bank became keen to build upon
the success of this project by extending a similar service
in all the countries where it was present. It made a start
by building a first of its kind Blockchain-based payment
system – again using the Finacle Blockchain solution – for
processing remittances from India to Canada. The intra-
bank network is a faster, cheaper, reliable and transparent
alternative to SWIFT and eliminates the friction commonly
found in cross-border payments.
One network, many benefits
Unlike SWIFT payments, which pass through a number
of correspondent banks before hitting their destination,
Blockchain remittances pass straight through from the bank
of the remitter to that of the beneficiary. Not only does this
save time, it also saves considerable costs incurred towards
intermediary charges and for switching between the
different messaging formats used by those intermediaries.
In addition to significantly improving the cost efficiency
of remittances from India to Canada and attracting more
customers with a much shorter turnaround time, the
Blockchain network opens up a new revenue stream for
ICICI Bank, which will allow other banks in India to route
payments to Canada through their intra-bank system, for a
fee. An agency portal to help small and mid-sized remitting
firms to send money to India, is also in the offing.
Thus far, the Bank has transmitted 1,300 transactions
worth CAD 8 million to test the Blockchain network. ICICI
Bank’s ultimate goal is to scale the network to several other
countries where there is a similar opportunity.

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“We have been constantly challenging and re-orientating our processes through innovation, which
is one of the core DNAs of ICICI. Our journey with Infosys has been collaborative and are working on
many exciting projects including Blockchain.”

B.Madhivanan, Chief Technology and Digital Officer, ICICI Bank

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 KOTAK MAHINDRA
REAPS THE API BANKING
ADVANTAGE
Profile
Kotak Mahindra is one of India’s leading banking and financial services groups,
offering a wide range of financial services that encompass every sphere of life.
The first bank in India to be converted from a non-banking finance company
in 2003, Kotak Mahindra Bank is today among the country’s most trusted
financial institutions.

Creating a strong API banking Key focus areas

ecosystem
Seeking to improve the banking experience through
technology, design and customization of products and
services, Kotak Mahindra Bank piloted an open banking
platform some time ago. The Bank built an API store where
corporate customers, FinTech companies, developers and
the Bank’s other ecosystem partners could access various
APIs for collaboration and innovation.
Getting started
• Register: Developers and FinTechs can register to check
out Kotak Bank’s APIs and their approach towards Open
Banking.
• Build & Experiment: Developers can build applications,
exchange ideas, and try out new use cases.
The store focuses on two areas, namely lending, offering
APIs for personal loans, home loans and credit cards,
and payments, with APIs for UPI (Unified Payments
Interface) Payments, Aadhaar Enabled Payments, and
Cash Management Services for small, medium and large
enterprises. Fintechs and developers have to register their
details on the portal before gaining access to the APIs.
Results
The API store has succeeded in onboarding 80 partners of
which 30 partners’ use cases have gone live in a matter of
just 11 months. With its renewed approach and API banking
strategy Kotak bank has witnessed a 60% drop in time it
takes to integrate partner solutions. The user-centric portal
supports self-service and offers a variety of tools for testing
APIs and documentation to enable usage.

• Go Live: When ready to go to production, Kotak Bank will

guide the developers and take the solution live.

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“The Infosys Finacle Client Innovation Awards acknowledge breakthrough technologies and
innovations in the banking sector and we are delighted that Kotak Mahindra Bank has once again
been recognized for its digital-first initiatives. At Kotak, we are focused on building an innovation-led
organization that makes banking simpler, more convenient and secure and offers a seamless banking
experience to our customers.”

Sanjay Gupta, Senior Executive Vice President,

Kotak Mahindra Bank

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 NATIONS TRUST BANK
- SRI LANKA’S OPEN API
BANKING LEADER
Profile
Established in 1999 through the acquisition of the Colombo branch of Overseas Trust Bank,
Nations Trust Bank (NTB) offers a range of products and services to retail, corporate and
institutional clients. Nations Trust Bank PLC is among the top 30 business establishments in
Sri Lanka as ranked by Business Today Magazine, ably providing a host of financial products
and services to a wide range of customers. Nations Trust is also the bank behind Sri Lanka’s
first fully digital bank, FriMi. The bank operates 95 branches across the country, boasting an
ATM network covering 127 locations and 48 Cash Deposit & Withdrawal Machines, plus more
than 3,500 ATMs on the Lanka Pay Network

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Pioneering Open Banking
In 2018, the Nations Trust Bank took a huge step towards
establishing its footprint in the digital economy by
launching Open API Banking in Sri Lanka. By introducing
Open Banking even though it is not mandated by
regulation, NTB proves it has the vision to see farther than
most other institutions in the country.
The API store is built to PSD 2 standards on a foundation
of Finacle Core Banking. A sandbox offers 14 APIs to
developers, corporate clients, startups and other partners,
who can use them to collaborate, innovate and also
integrate the Bank’s services, such as ERP automation, cash
flow management, fund transfer and payments, into their
own systems.
Today, several hundred use-cases are available in the API
store. The Bank, which hosted the country’s first hackathon,
continues to take measures to introduce new propositions
and user experiences.
Reaping the benefits
Open Banking will form an important part of NTB’s
revenue strategy, going forward. It has helped the
Bank cut integration costs and staffing expenses in
sales and marketing, and also enabled it to attract “red
carpet” corporate customers. An example of this is Keells
supermarkets, which has integrated its systems with those
of NTB. Using an API bundle, the store has integrated FriMI
payments – FriMI is a digital-only bank running on Finacle –
with the POS terminals at all its outlets.
Besides offering these benefits, the API store has helped
NTB take a lead over other banks as they march towards the
digital economy.
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 RBL BANK REIMAGINES THE
CUSTOMER JOURNEY WITH
A WORLD CLASS DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT HUB
Profile
RBL Bank is India’s fastest growing mid-sized bank for three consecutive
years. The Bank offers a range of services, from corporate and retail banking
to treasury and financial market operations. It serves 5.82 million customers
through 288 branches, 221 banking outlets and 390 ATMs and is rapidly
growing in presence.

Focus - Going truly digital
Among the first in the country to launch an API store, RBL
is India’s most open bank and is known for its partnerships
with FinTech firms. Recently, the Bank decided to revamp its
digital banking experience to give impetus to growth and
meet the rising expectations of customers. Consequently, it
upgraded its existing systems to the latest version of Finacle
Online Banking and the Finacle Digital Engagement Hub.
With the new digital engagement hub, customer
onboarding on digital channels takes only one-fifth the
time it used to take. 70 percent of processes are digitized
and automated. There has been a massive 90 percent
reduction in cost across digital channels in the last fiscal.
Customers have been particularly appreciative of features
such as Chat and Click to Call. More than 6,600 chats were
initiated and about 2,800 calls were requested in the space
of a month.

Making rapid strides The Bank is leveraging its new capabilities to expand API
Banking; one solution enables retail customers of liquid
The Bank is already feeling the impact of the upgrade. With
mutual funds to redeem their holdings online at all hours,
the effort to roll out new products reducing by half, RBL
and receive the proceeds in real-time. RBL is also bringing
has managed to quickly launch more than 20 products
several FinTech partners on board the Finacle Digital
on its digital channels. There has been a smart increase
Engagement Hub to offer services such as flight and hotel
both in the number of registered digital banking users
bookings.
and their volume of transactions. Online banking users
exceed 100,000.

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“We are happy to have been recognized at the Infosys Finacle Client Innovation Awards 2019. RBL
Bank, has always aimed to offer a seamless experience to its customers on digital platforms. This award
strengthens our commitment further and drives us to develop cutting edge solutions. We have been
leveraging a comprehensive set of features to address the evolving needs of our diverse customer
segments. Digital transformation is changing the banking landscape, we are happy to be in a unique
position to understand the customer requirements and deliver effective solutions.”

Sankarson Banerjee, Chief Information Officer, RBL Bank

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 AUSTRALIAN MILITARY
BANK – CLOUD BASED
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Profile
Formed in 1959, Australian Military Bank (AMB) started out as a credit union
and later became a mutually owned bank. It is Australia’s longest serving
financial institution for the defence community, and has more than 50,000
members. With 30 branches at major defence bases in the country, the
member funds exceed $1.3 billion.

It’s got to be digital
A couple of years ago, AMB found itself fighting not just the
big banks but also the disruption brought about by digital
technology. Grappling with unprecedented customer
expectations on one side and new-age competition on
the other, the bank realized it would have to change
dramatically to keep pace with the market. While AMB
knew that the only way to become more agile, efficient and
innovative was complete digital transformation, it wanted
it done without downtime or service disruption, and at
competitive cost.
successfully the world over, Finacle had to prove that it was
capable of complying with the unique requirements of the
Australian market.
An independent authority reviewed the features of the
Finacle suite and analyzed the gaps versus the market’s
requirements. Finacle dedicated a team to quickly close
those gaps and localize the solution. Now it was perfectly
suited to its market, complete with a range of Australia-
specific products and seamlessly integrated with a vast
partner ecosystem.

Open for business

Australianized solution stack
Keen to find a capable and trustworthy partner, AMB
evaluated several options before choosing Infosys Finacle
digital banking solution suite for its digital transformation.
Finacle’s open systems, out-of-the-box APIs for easy
integration, and industry leading credentials were
key factors in its selection. However, despite running
The Finacle Digital Banking Suite implemented at AMB
included the Core Banking, Customer Information File (CIF),
Alerts, Retail Loan Origination, Payments, Internet Banking
and Mobile Banking modules. There were 16 different
touch points with allied service providers and end-to-
end connectivity with all major ecosystem partners, such
as providers of ATM and payment solutions. Open APIs

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enabled easy integration and collaboration with partners
and ensured that AMB was ready for both Open Banking
and the New Payments Platform.
Executed flawlessly, the solution went live on the cloud
in a matter of 10 months. Within 6 months, the benefits
were immediately visible – as performance improvement,
cost saving, enhanced security and scalability. Members
and employees were treated to a transformed experience,
where onboarding happened in minutes, and savings,
transaction and deposit accounts were processed straight
through. Channel adoption was close to 100 percent,
mobile app registrations went up 116 percent, and system
uptime reached 99.8 percent. Within a year of going live,
AMB’s inbound calls dropped by 27 percent, while service
quality improved by 25 percent. Finacle also provided out-
of-the-box capability for regulatory reporting, and ongoing
support for regulatory changes.

“We aspire to be a great niche bank by transforming into a modern, nimble, new age digital bank.
The Infosys team displayed exemplary commitment to help us not only go live in a very short time
but also support ongoing service enhancements. It has been a true partnership to get to this point
and positions us well for the future.”

John Ford, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Military Bank

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About Infosys Finacle
Finacle is the industry-leading digital banking solution suite from EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned
product subsidiary of Infosys. Finacle helps traditional and emerging financial institutions drive truly
digital transformation to achieve frictionless customer experiences, larger ecosystem play, insights–
driven interactions and ubiquitous automation. Today, banks in over 100 countries rely on Finacle to
service more than a billion consumers and 1.3 billion accounts.

Finacle solutions address the core banking, omnichannel banking, payments, treasury, origination,
liquidity management, Islamic banking, wealth management, analytics, artificial intelligence, and
blockchain requirements of financial institutions to drive business excellence. An assessment of the
top 1250 banks in the world reveals that institutions powered by the Finacle Core Banking solution,
on average, enjoy 7.2% points lower costs-to-income ratio than others.

For more information, contact finacle@edgeverve.com www.finacle.com

© 2019 EdgeVerve Systems Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys, Bangalore, India. All Rights Reserved. This documentation is the sole property of EdgeVerve Systems Limited (“EdgeVerve”).
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