The business of banking is tougher now than ever before. On the one hand, they have to contend with changing customer expectations of hyper-personalized services, differentiated offerings, and greater innovation. As more millennials and Gen Z come into the formal banking system, the sector will have to change further to meet their demand for greater choice, flexibility, and control. On the other, they must contend with fintechs, challenger banks, and technology giants who have the digital prowess to offer personalized, innovative products and services that customers want. To make matters worse, there are disruptions in the macro-environment – ranging from geopolitical unrest to a pandemic that has complicated the banking landscape exponentially and has necessitated a range of urgent measures to meet the unexpected challenges. The question now is, how can banks gear up to thrive in such an environment?

The answer, as most banks understand well, lies in building the strong technology foundation they need to address evolving customer and market demands. Only with a sound tech foundation can they deliver the agile, personalized, customer-centric strategies that are required to thrive in the complex banking landscape today. Today more banks are exploring the use of cloud-native technologies that can enable them to build highly scalable applications in today’s modern environment with private, public, and hybrid clouds along with the ability to use cloud-native applications with existing core applications on z/OS.

One such cloud-native, micro-services-based technology is SunTec’s Xelerate customer engagement and orchestration application. Banks looking to progressively modernizing the core can build agility for rapid innovation by co-locating this intelligent over-the-top (OTT) personalization application with existing core applications and transactional data on z/OS. This is one of the best solutions for banks looking to transform operations. Co-locating Xelerate on IBM Z creates an agile, rules-driven middle layer that sits on top of and seamlessly integrates with the core banking application platform. Banks can draw on the dual power of Xelerate on IBM Z to modernize key functions such as product management, pricing, revenue management, and more. And best of all, they can do so by leveraging their existing infrastructure investments without compromising on security, performance, reliability, scalability, and maintenance.

Up to 70 percent of enterprise structured data and business workflows resides on IBM Z. It provides the perfect foundation for deploying AI and advanced analytics by increasing access to data and workflows via application modernization. Modern open technology along with open source and ISV offerings on IBM Z enable business acceleration and cost-efficiency. Integrating IBM Z with a bank’s hybrid cloud strategy can drive 2.5 – 5 times the value of a public cloud alone by accelerating business agility, enhancing developer productivity, improving infrastructure cost efficiency, ensuring better compliance management, and deployment flexibility.

To put it simply, this co-located solution delivers two world-class solutions under one umbrella. Banks can leverage a category-leading revenue management and customer experience orchestration solution on a powerful infrastructure to revamp their strategy and operations for the digital era.

SunTec Xelerate co-location on IBM Z helps reduce latency by placing new applications in close proximity to the existing system of record data, e.g., use of APIs for easy access to business-critical applications and associated data running on IBM Z. SunTec Xelerate co-located with IBM Z offers your bank a powerful, intelligent tech foundation for better and faster innovation and personalization without incurring additional infrastructure costs. It is the solution you need to unlock customer delight and long-term profitability.

Find out how this unique co-located solution can help your bank:

1.) Learn more about the IBM Z “co-locate application pattern” : Click here

2.) Request an IBM Garage Discovery Session to help you quickly identify high impact opportunities for unlocking the full value of IBM Z applications and data as part of a hybrid cloud strategy: Click here

3.) Find out more about IBM Z: Link to IBM Z/ IBM LinuxONE page: Click here