Banks Large And Small Turn To FinTech Friends For Modernization

From multinational banks to community financial institutions (FIs), teaming up with external help can be a valuable strategy to strengthening product offerings.

This week’s examination of bank-FinTech collaborations finds one FinTech embracing the Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) model for trade finance, while Deutsche Bank, Community Bank and others tap their FinTech friends to accelerate modernization.

Bolero Invests in Trade Finance Portal-as-a-Service

The Banking-as-a-Service wave continues to grow, allowing banks to expand their presence and drive new revenue streams by integrating their infrastructure and capabilities into the platforms of non-banks. As it turns out, the XaaS model can work to enhance banks’ own offerings, too, and trade finance FinTech Bolero International is deploying the strategy.

The company announced the debut of its Trade Finance Platform-as-a-Service (TPaaS), Galileo TPaaS for Banks, a white-labeled platform that allows banks to offer their own corporate customers a digital-first trade finance solution. Galileo enables corporate clients to manage transactions across banking partners on a single interface. For banks themselves, deploying the as-a-Service offering accelerates efforts to modernize trade finance offerings without the cost of developing and deploying proprietary solutions.

In the release, Anchal Tiwari, head of Product at Bolero International, said, “Our vision of Galileo TPaaS is to enable banks to offer an elevated customer experience to the end-user at a fraction of the cost that banks incur in traditional trade portal solutions.”

Deutsche Bank, TIS Team on Corporate Services

Germany’s Deutsche Bank is teaming up with Treasury Intelligence Solutions (TIS) to modernize its corporate banking offering and will first begin with anti-fraud solutions. The partnership will see Deutsche integrate TIS technology for treasury and finance. With a focus on developing value-added products and services for corporate clients, the partners are first introducing a payment fraud prevention solution that wields TIS’s cloud platform and Deutsche’s fraud technology.

“Harnessing both company and community data to solve key challenges, such as fraud prevention, together with Deutsche Bank is a big win for our customers,” said TIS Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Erol Bozak in a statement.

In another remark, Deutsche Bank Global Head of Cash Management Ole Matthiessen said, “establishing client solutions that are beyond traditional financial services” is a key goal for the bank, which will use industry collaboration to fuel that initiative.

Wolters Kluwer Elevates PPP Applications for Community Bank

Oregon-based Community Bank is collaborating with Wolters Kluwer to automate and streamline its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application workflows. Community Bank is working with Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions’ Paycheck Protection Program Supported By TSoftPlus product to modernize the process by which small business clients apply for and receive PPP funding.

In a statement, Community Bank President and CEO Tom Moran said because the FI is already in a partnership with Wolters Kluwer, wielding its compliance and technology offering CRA Wiz, it was a natural extension for the bank to expand that partnership for its PPP operations.

Finastra Modernizes Banque Saudi Fransi’s Treasury Operations

Saudi Arabia’s Banque Saudi Fransi is collaborating with Finastra to modernize its treasury and trading operations, according to a press release the organizations issued this week. The FI is now live with Finastra’s treasury management platform Fusion Kondor, a step toward modernizing the bank’s back office so it can improve its own product offering to customers.

In the release, Banque Saudi Fransi Head of Treasury Zuhair Mardam pointed to a convergence of emerging regulations and pressures to introduce new revenue streams as fostering an environment in which back-office modernization is key.

“As banks focus on improving returns on capital and meeting new regulatory obligations, the treasury occupies a unique position at the very center of a bank’s operations and its revenue stream,” he said in the release. “Automating this part of the business means that we can manage global treasury trading operations with high levels of efficiency and compliance, yet still manage risk effectively and avoid expensive system costs. Ultimately, this will help us provide an excellent customer experience and help us grow our market share.”