JIM SPRINGER – Banks ‘primary market’
As banks look at small-business initiatives to raise revenue, one local Boston company is helping financial institutions make online banking solutions easier for bankers and their customers.
Concord-based Financial Fusion provides integrated financial solutions to more than 200 of the world’s leading financial institutions. Its Financial Fusion Banking Suite is designed to meet the online delivery requirements of the financial services industry.
The Banking Suite provides an integrated platform for consumers, small businesses and large corporate cash management customers and can be delivered across multiple channels while at the same time providing an online compatible environment that manages account and payment management, bill payment and presentment, alerts, and entitlements.
Jim Springer, chief marketing officer of Financial Fusion, said being able to provide an all-inclusive banking solution that can manage a wide range of clients is essential for any growing bank.
“We have three solutions – the e-banking solutions for the consumer banking space, corporate banking solutions and the payments solutions – and they all fit together,” said Springer. “The market has significantly evolved over the last several years and several years ago, financial institutions and banks were scrambling to have a presence on the Web. They quickly put up sites that enabled clients to do basic account lookup and payment functions. All the banks now recognize that there [are] a lot [of processes] in terms of adopting online banking … for the banks, these customers who are online are the most profitable customers and they tend to bank longer and are better retained and banks recognize that their service is important.”
Springer, who closely follows market trends to ensure that the organization’s product plans align with market needs, is also responsible for managing the design and execution of marketing programs on behalf of the organization.
According to Springer, banks need to get up to speed on effective online banking technology for their variety of clients.
“As transaction volume goes up, the cost to support this system goes up. Banks have also recognized that their business customers are important from a profitability perspective, and [banks] need an ability to service them. [Financial Fusion] wants to offer them services customized to [specific] customers,” said Springer.
‘Distinct’ Solutions
Financial Fusion launched its consumer e-banking platform in 2000 and earlier this year launched the corporate e-banking solution on the same integrated platform, making it easy for banks to manage consumers and small-business online banking applications.
According to Springer, banks can customize those solutions based on the need of the segmentation.
“Essentially, banks can access bill payment across the board and then offer cash management solutions to corporate business customers, including wire transfer and tax and payroll programs,” said Springer. “We’ve created solutions that are separate and distinct from each other, but work with the same platform. Banks buy the consumer banking solution and then can add on corporate and small-banking solutions.”
Recently, Financial Fusion announced that Bank of America Military Bank has licensed Financial Fusion Consumer Banking Solution, allowing the bank’s active or retired military personnel, Department of Defense civilians and U.S. government employees to pay bills, review account balances, transfer funds and view check images from anywhere in the world.
In early June, Financial Fusion announced an alliance that will combine the complete line of Financial Fusion’s software for Banking, Payments and Capital Markets with the systems integration expertise of Digital China Software Ltd. That agreement will provide the financial services industry in China with complete solutions for online banking, corporate cash management, payment processing, electronic trade connectivity and system integration services.
Celent Communications, a Boston-based consulting and research firm for banks’ and financial institutions’ business strategies, publishes monthly reports ranking technology leaders for the financial services industry and predicting market trends for banks.
Celent recently predicted that IT spending by Chinese banks will grow from $4.5 billion in 2001 to an estimated $10.5 billion in 2005, making Financial Fusion one of Celent’s top-rated business solutions provider.
“[Celent] looks at an IT company’s small-business solutions,” said Christine Barry, an analyst with Celent who helps predict marketplace trends. “We are seeing a trend in the marketplace where a lot of vendors are moving from retail to large corporations and banks are showing a preference to having a single-solution platform to provide all of their banking needs.”
Barry said because of Financial Fusions’ single-solution platform of e-banking for consumer and small businesses, the company has a good overall rating, “and a lot of positive feedback from customers.” She added, “We put together reports ranking vendors and help banks make decisions on what vendors they should go with … we write reports primarily for bank customers.”
And Springer said Financial Fusion develops its products’ bank feedback and consumer market trends.
“Payments are of importance across the board and there was a recent study that said that 40 percent of a retail bank’s operating revenue and 35 percent of its operating expenses was related to payments,” said Springer. “Clients generate payment transactions from e-banking and this enables a processing efficiency. That is important from an operational perspective and from a customer service perspective.”
But like any other industry, the market is competitive, and Financial Fusion competes with IT businesses around the country for customers. Still, Springer said Financial Fusion’s main focus remains the financial services industry.
“We differentiate [from our competitors] by how we are designed, the support and architecture … our goal is to continue to extend the company’s product and service so that it supports more than just e-banking,” said Springer. “We are trying to develop additional revenue streams in this bad economic market and our primary focus remains the financial marketplace and that will continue to be our primary focus. We are focused on e-banking and we will look to extend that … financial services is where we are and will continue to be our primary market.”
