Collaboration to enable a platform of open innovation

London, UK, and Toronto, Canada, 15 June 2017 – Finastra and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have reached an agreement to explore how the two companies can help customers transform their banking operations with IBM Cloud and Cognitive technologies. Finastra and IBM plan to bring IBM technology into the Finastra open architecture to enrich the digital retail banking experience and bring new innovations to market. 

 

As part of the collaboration, Finastra intends to run its FusionBanking Essence core and digital solution on IBM Cloud. The companies will also work towards collaborating on both a Financial Crime and a Blockchain-based offering, and IBM plans to support Finastra as it develops retail banking proof of concepts and product demos, including provisioning multiple Watson APIs to infuse cognitive capabilities into its products. 

“Our collaboration with Finastra brings together two long-standing industry leaders with a combined 80 years of experience in financial services, said David Wilson, Vice President, IBM Cloud Business Partners. “We envision using our combined strengths to impact more organizations, from the largest banks to the newest crowdsourcing lender, to help them harness the disruptive power of cloud, cognitive and data.”

 

As part of the collaboration, IBM and Finastra will share thought leadership, developer and architecture resources around IBM Cloud, Watson and Blockchain technologies in order to create innovations that result in joint revenues through large scale transformational client engagements.

 

“More than a simple sales agreement, this pairing brings a new dimension to our relationship with IBM and creates an opportunity to build a platform for the banks of today and tomorrow,” said Nadeem Syed, CEO at Finastra. “Our open architecture and open approach enables us to embrace a wide ecosystem of partners, and as we enter a new era of banking where collaboration is a must, our relationship with a dominant player like IBM can extend our product offering and enable clients to access enhanced transformation capabilities.”

 

According to Gartner*, “The use of APIs in a number of domains, such as cloud computing, integration, application rationalization and mobile development, is well-established. APIs enable modularity in large software systems. In turn, modularity enables complex systems to scale, evolve and interoperate. In the past, APIs were an afterthought in the process of building and delivering solutions. But as IT environments have grown more complex, API management has become a discipline in itself, supported by an ecosystem of tool vendors and professional services firms.”

 

The FusionFabric.cloud architecture and open APIs from Finastra make it possible for IBM to incorporate its technology and cognitive capabilities directly into the Finastra banking solution. FusionFabric.cloud enables banks, Fintechs, consultants and students to collaborate in an app ecosystem for financial services. 

 

*Gartner, Blockchains and APIs Have a Bright Future Together, Paolo Malinverno, Ray Valdes and Kristin R. Moyer, Gartner, 26 May 2017.