One of the most complex dilemmas in the banking industry to date is how to modernize 40-year-old systems while still maintaining product innovation. And banks encounter innovation barriers that prevent them from adapting to market shifts toward personalized bundles and offerings. Zafin is utilizing Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services to transform banking by innovating the way a financial institution provides products and pricing to its customers without compromising its modernization journey.
“There’s been a lot of symbiosis where our sales team and industry advisors work very closely with Microsoft to win new business for both companies.”
Chris Dickin, Executive Vice President of Global Partner Strategy, Zafin
The slow process of modernization is a dilemma for financial institutions
Banks and other financial institutions are hamstrung by 40-year-old systems that make it challenging to innovate. Product managers who want to bring new products to the market have had to use outdated systems, which is difficult, especially considering modern compliance regulations. “That’s where Zafin comes in,” says Chris Dickin, Executive Vice President of Global Partner Strategy for Zafin. “We separate what is called the ‘incumbent core system,’ and take out the complexity for banks to create products and prices.”
So, how do banks innovate the product itself?
“How can banks bring solutions and products to the market to help support the transition while the incumbent core systems are still being modernized?" asked Dickin. "That's where you have to extract or separate what is the incumbent core from a layer, which is a full enterprise product and pricing platform."
For instance, if a customer were in the market for a house, in the old paradigm, that customer would need a mortgage. Moving forward, banks can’t fully embrace digital transformation without the ability to also have product transformation along with it. What would happen if the package the bank proposed to the customer contained not only the mortgage; it contained house insurance, a streaming subscription, and legal fees? This is a completely different paradigm that incorporates modern ways of approaching business solutions. However, to do that today, banks would require a massive amount of work to be able to innovate using legacy systems.
“We have a product called Zafin Studio that essentially puts a layer on top of all of these old cores to combine the products—credit card core, insurance core, deposit core, loan core, and enables product managers to put a price on it that is best aligned with their customer’s profile and sell it,” says Dickin. “Zafin Studio also distills information available in the market using AI to provide a proposition canvas so the product manager can model the ROI of a product they want to innovate.”
Zafin transforms financial products through innovative technology
Working with Microsoft from a technology standpoint makes sense for Zafin because Microsoft technology is deeply integrated into the financial industry. “We have worked with Microsoft for a number of years as there is not a single bank in the world that does not use Microsoft in some way, shape, or form,” says Dickin. “Given that our industry is committed to using Microsoft, it was natural for us to align. It doesn't benefit us to split our capabilities across multiple clouds.”
The symbiosis between the two companies is deep. Dickin sees Microsoft as the cloud infrastructure which provides the breadth of the solutions that are used by the financial services industry which, in turn, enables Zafin to provide the right data around product and pricing and the capability to modernize old core systems.
“When you look at our customers, many of them used to have a multi-cloud strategy,” says Dickin. “However, that’s changing and Azure has been accelerating substantially.” With Zafin solely deployed on Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, the company is able to leverage Microsoft capabilities both internally and for its customers. Zafin’s strategy is to utilize the whole breadth of solutions that Microsoft technologies provide (Azure, Microsoft Teams, and Dynamics 365) within financial services to enable insights into products and pricing for financial institutions to bring innovative products to market.
New technology, new business
Not only has Zafin running as a SaaS on Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services aligned the company with the strategies that the banks have from a technology standpoint—going down a path of migrating core workloads from their on-premises solutions over to the cloud—but this alignment between the two companies has also been an effective business strategy as well.
“There’s been a lot of symbiosis where our sales team and industry advisors work very closely with Microsoft to win new business for both companies,” says Dickin. “Microsoft has been instrumental in working with us to win a tier one bank in Europe.”
Dickin believes the value Microsoft brings to Zafin’s growing business goes beyond just the technology. “The value the partnership brings is new accounts. With this partnership, the two companies are landing multimillion dollar deals with tier one and tier two banks and bringing innovative products to an industry that is slow to modernize.”
What’s next
As Zafin and Microsoft continue to work together in the future, Dickin is excited about the new product innovations that are on the horizon. “We think that the introduction of Gen AI as well as Microsoft Fabric from a data management standpoint are crucial," said Dickin. "Now Zafin Studio and our Product and Pricing Index (PPI) have the capability to understand what’s in the market and how products are performing because we’re using Gen AI to distill the information to make it comprehensible for a product manager.” This is a capability that didn’t previously exist and removes a lot of backend work for product managers, giving them more time to focus on product innovation.
As Zafin Studio continues to integrate new Microsoft technologies, banks will benefit by having access to new products, propositions, and pricing models that enable new innovation. “Zafin is the enterprise SaaS product and pricing platform that is changing the way banks tackle transformation and core modernization initiatives to bring innovative propositions and business models to market faster and with reduced cost," said Al Karim Somji, Zafin's Chief Executive Officer. "We look forward to continued collaboration with Microsoft to enable banks around the globe to modernize their core systems and transform customer experiences.”
Learn more about Zafin at www.zafin.com, on LinkedIn, or X.
“We look forward to continued collaboration with Microsoft to enable banks around the globe to modernize their core systems and transform customer experiences.”
Al Karim Somji, Chief Executive Officer, Zafin
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