CIOIN

C.V.G. Prasad, CIO

ING Vysya Bank

From a technology perspective, all customers facing core banking processes relevant for account opening and account maintenance had to be re-engineered for the project. This was very challenging

Executive summary

CIO 100 Winner: C.V.G. Prasad launched the 'customer first' initiative that would use IT and BPR creatively towards the objective of making the bank 'easy to deal with' for customers.

Established in 2002, the Bangalore-based ING Vysya Bank is an entity formed with the merger of erstwhile, Vysya Bank, a premier bank in the Indian private sector and ING, a Dutch financial services company.

Financial institutions are perceived to be opaque and inwardly focused. And ING Vysya Bank's worldwide market research suggested the same: customers do not feel in control of their money when dealing with financial services companies.

C.V.G. Prasad, CIO, ING Vysya Bank, wanted to change that. He decided to launch the 'customer first' initiative that would use technology and BPR creatively towards the objective of making the bank 'easy to deal with' for customers.

Using pre-generated kits for accessing telephone banking and ATM, including instantaneous replacement of lost cards was the first step. "Stocking pre-generated inventory of accounts and access devices like PINs and ATM cards at all customer touch-points took us closer to our aim," says Prasad.

He says that the company's focus was on pre-processing all operations and technology elements associated with these processes, so that the only task would be to activate the account and channels as soon as the customer's request is received.

However, there were some roadblocks in the implementation. "From a technology perspective, all customers facing core banking processes relevant for account opening and account maintenance had to be re-engineered for the project. This was very challenging," says Prasad. Users were comfortable with the existing processes and didn't want to change the way they work. Initially, there was a significant disconnect between the people who designed the new processes and people involved in user acceptance testing. To tackle that, additional training on the current and modified business processes with inputs on the benefits of the re-engineered process was provided to the users.

Once these challenges were surmounted, the final roll out was completed in August 2008. The project resulted in overall cost savings of Rs 2.5 crore at the time of project closure. "The project reduced account opening and service request fulfillment cycle times by more than 90 percent, making our customers very happy," says Prasad.