Industry
Banking
Banking Services Transformation: Unlocking Exponential Value
Capital Markets
Unlocking Exponential Future Growth in Capital Market Firms
Insurance
Reinventing the Insurance Industry with a Digital-first Strategy
Solution
Data and Analytics
Unlock Business Agility and Future-ready Operations with TCS
Consulting
TCS Consulting Services to Achieve Success in the Digital Era
Highlights
- Cost pressures, rising finance spends, and increased regulatory scrutiny have forced the chief financial officers (CFOs) of financial institutions to go digital to stay relevant, innovative, and ensure cost efficiency.
- Among the technologies that the CFOs of banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) firms are investing in are analytics and cognitive competencies.
- TCS has developed a suite of automation solutions to help BFSI CFOs overcome operational challenges.
In this article
Overview
The BFSI sector faces numerous challenges.
These include elevated stakeholder expectations, global economic and geopolitical instability, increased regulatory scrutiny, and unprecedented events like COVID-19. Digital capabilities help chief financial officers (CFOs) of BFSI firms to Digital capabilities help chief financial officers (CFOs) of BFSI firms to stay relevant, be more innovative, and ensure cost efficiency.. Thus, digitalization has become a top priority for these firms.
Organizations that have not pursued automation and digitalization continue to operate with fragmented and manual processes, which increase the costs of the finance function. Robotic process automation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain are some of the technologies that these firms have adopted in their processes.
What has also emerged as a key element in decision-making is data and analytics. A survey by TCS on global CFOs showed that many BFSI CFOs are relying on agile methods to not only accelerate their digitalization journeys but to also improve productivity and manage changing business priorities.
Chief executive officers (CEOs) are increasingly looking up to CFOs to provide insights on financial data and to be a valuable partner in the organization's growth strategy. Automating financial data reporting and making it a self-servicing function help BFSI firms offer their stakeholders information in real time, thereby enhancing decision-making.
To help BFSI firms address these challenges, TCS has created a suite of solutions and services to help BFSI CFOs consolidate, standardize, and digitize their core finance capabilities. These solutions ensure credible and consistent reporting, accelerated closing, enhanced performance management with superior visualizations, real-time forecasting, insightful profit and loss analysis, and balance sheet review with embedded and predictive analytics.
Solution
TCS' comprehensive suite of solutions and services address the specific needs of BFSI CFOs.
They encompass the following:
Financial maturity assessment: This cloud-based service helps firms assess the maturity of their finance function across key dimensions.
Strategic finance transformation: This aspect covers advisory services, transformation, and optimization. These features enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance function, enabling it to operate across multiple organizational agendas such as mergers and acquisitions, cost optimization, systems upgrade, and more.
Digital finance close: This service helps BFSI firms digitally close their accounts faster and more accurately. This is done by leveraging deep domain knowledge and cognitive technologies.
CXO digiboard: This self-service solution generates reports for senior stakeholders. It enhances performance reporting and accuracy by providing actionable insights.
Financial spreading as-a-service: This cloud-based solution analyses the financial statements of counterparties and credit or investment statements using analytical insights.
IFRS compliance suite: This compliance service is a TCS intellectual property-led solution that helps BFSI firms comply with IFRS 17.
US GAAP LDTI: This component makes US insurance companies that issue long-duration contracts compliant with the latest US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) mandate for long-duration targeted improvements (LDTI).
Finance controls: This feature services reconciliation, balance sheet substantiation, product control, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and internal controls over financial reporting (ICFR).
Figure 1: An overview of TCS’ suite of solutions for BFSI CFOs
Business benefits
The suite of solutions delivers value by making the finance function future ready.
The solution empowers BFSI CFOs to maintain costs, be compliant, and enable improved analysis and decision support. The business benefits are as follows:
- Touchless financial transactions: Automation of financial operations by leveraging technologies like AI, ML, blockchain, and cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP)
- Self-service management information (MI) reporting: Proactive and automated reporting function serving the information needs for daily as well as strategic decisions
- Real-time forecasting: A real-time, on-demand, and accurate forecasting capability
- Continuous accounting: Daily soft closure of books which will help CFOs report financial statements in a timely manner to stakeholders
- Compliance integrated in (BAU): Ensuring BAU work complies with regulations and policy changes to prevent penalties and reputational damage
- Aligned policies and processes: Enhancing outcomes with technology
The TCS advantage
TCS brings decades of experience and deep contextual knowledge to the table.
BFSI firms stand to gain when they partner with TCS:
Proven expertise: CFOs and their organizations benefit from TCS’ global experience and exemplary record in nurturing fruitful relationships with a wide customer base.
Strong domain knowledge: Customers benefit from TCS’ unparalleled knowledge and exemplary execution track record driven by expertise in global finance, data, and analytics.
Strategic partnerships: TCS has developed partnerships through transformational initiative and cross-industry solutions. These include alliances with major enterprise resource planning (ERP), robotic process automation (RPA), and cloud providers. They help TCS’ customers to identify and realize value faster by translating experience to execution.
Centers of excellence (CoEs): TCS' CoEs help BFSI firms with competency development and solutioning within finance.
Co-Innovation Network (COINTM): TCS partners with leading fintech start-ups to build point solutions to a specific industry problem.