The article gives a summary of key arguments from an independent review by the swiss core banking radar, an initiative sponsored by Swisscom - click here for a detailed review
New challenges and new players in the finance industry
Many traditional banks use old information systems and have a complex and fragmented banking infrastructure, resulting in overall high costs.
Greenfield start-ups of existing big banks want to deploy new technologies in a separate new unit without legacy IT burdens in order to spark innovation and keep up with the competition.
New fintech banks (neo banks, digital banks, etc.) focus on personalized and simplified services but need to anticipate the implementation of a new regulatory framework.
Mobile banking has become of foremost importance, while non-bank competitors are taking up an increasing market share.
With its next generation banking system (SolitX), Ariadne provides a lean and simple technology for old and new players in the banking industry to rely on.
SolitX relies upon the basic concept that all banking services can be represented in an algorithmic form. Thus, new products can be easily configured in SolitX and transacted.
Providers of neo-core banking systems, which often focus on payment transactions can integrate SolitX to map complex products, or neo banks willing to offer a wider range of products get all products at their fingertips with SolitX benefiting from short time-to-market development.
Emerging crypto banks and platforms can use SolitX for crypto trading or asset tokenization.
SolitX for Open banking
Open banking and open platforms are changing the face of the finance industry. The idea of customer journeys and end-to-end digitisation for the end customer forces those involved to develop cross-company concepts. Open Banking is a buzzword that is on everybody’s lips, meaning a fundamental rethink in system support for the financial industry.
SolitX is based on an open banking approach and enables cross-bank and cross-company deployment scenarios with the end-to-end digitization of banking processes. In Solitx, financial contracts are digitized and become accessible to the customer through 3rd party applications via an API integration. This paves the way for digital finance and goes beyond the simple digitization of transactions.
SolitX , brings a new approach to the core banking systems market, because it is deliberately designed as an open architecture with an API-based integration concept allowing for user-specific configuration and high scalability.
The following three cross-company deployment and usage scenarios are theoretically conceivable in the interaction between FinTechs, banks, operators and companies outside the industry:
Scenario 1: Exchange of contracts
Banks and other participating companies use the same contracts and accompany the customer along a joint customer journey. For the customer, this takes the form of individual services.
Scenario 2: Cost sharing
Banks share a common platform for selected banking services, which they present in the form of standardised contracts.
Scenario 3: App Store model
Companies provide their products on a common SolitX platform based on the uniform standards of ACTUS. Processing is carried out by different companies. The services of individual companies can be provided consistently in accordance with the Customer Journey.
Conclusion – Is SolitX with Smart Contracts a new concept for the banking of the future?
The challenge for banks lies in developing a viable strategy for future system support. The opening of the systems is a central issue for all manufacturers. Start-ups and FinTechs provide solutions in increasingly central areas of the finance industry. Cross-sector networking as a component of new business models is already a hot topic and is discussed under the heading of “Ecosystems”.
Ariadne promises future-driven modernisation of the current system support of bank by providing a Core Banking system limited to the processing and booking of transactions (as of Smart Contracts), while peripheral systems will cater for functions such as consulting, online banking and monitoring transactions.
Case study
Mobile First Finance, an Indian FinTech and provider of CRM, workflow and KYC solutions, is using the SolitX software on a productive basis. Their solution is put together from their own software components and some from Ariadne, initially enables end-to-end digital client onboarding and then accesses SolitX. This is intended to make the products of the affiliated financial service providers, which are structured in ACTUS format, accessible to the customer when using the mobile application.
The solution is currently being used in projects by various companies:
· Indian cooperative credit company for microfinance arrangements: The multi-branch organisation needs a robust solution for its products and customers that meets both customer mobility and core banking requirements. As a Core Banking solution, SolitX maps microfinance products in contracts, ensures transaction management and supports legaly-compliant double-entry accounting. The KYC solution required for this is provided by Mobile First Finance.
· Credit institution as user of Mobile First Finance: The bank offers car loan and consumer loan financing. The customer structure requires a fully integrated, mobile application with client onboarding, a CRM workflow solution and core banking functionality for the products offered.
· Cooperation in distributed ledger technology (DLT): The founders of Ariadne have a stake in partner company atpar AG in Zurich. atpar AG also makes the ACTUS contracts available via different Blockchain variants. Initial projects and applications for the mapping, processing, and analysis of tokenised crypto assets have been carried out.
SolitX combined with a front-end interface for client onboarding, or mobile banking serves the needs of the customer mobility and core banking requirements equally well and can be applied from microfinance to mobile banking projects.
The article gives a summary of key arguments from an independent review by the swiss core banking radar, an initiative sponsored by Swisscom - click here for a detailed review
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