Banca Mifel and Finacle: A Partnership Powering Mexico’s Digital Banking Future

In this exclusive interview with Prakash Lachiramani, AVP & Business Head - Latin America and Caribbean, Infosys Finacle, three senior technology leaders at Banca Mifel – Ernesto Garcia Gomez (Chief Innovation Officer), Jose Raul Ortiz Carbajal (IT Director) and Arturo Rivera Fermoso (Chief Information Officer) - share their insights on the digital transformation happening at Banca Mifel, and the crucial role that Finacle is playing in that evolution. The conversation highlights the bank’s goal to adopt a cloud-native and digital-first approach to drive agility, enhance cybersecurity and elevate customer satisfaction.

Prakash: Good morning, Ernesto. I would like to thank you and Banca Mifel for giving us this opportunity to chat with you, learn more about you, your bank and its vision. To start the discussion, could you introduce Banca Mifel to our audience and state your role and objectives within the bank?

Ernesto: Yes. Thank you very much for the invitation. We're very glad to be here since Infosys Finacle has played a very important part in our journey. To tell you briefly about Banca Mifel - it's a very relevant bank in Mexico. We just finished the first phase of our digital transformation. So, we're ready to become more digital in terms of products, services and experiences. And for that, Finacle’s support in upgrading the core is very important.

I think that, historically, Banca Mifel has been providing products and financial services for the important cities and regions in Mexico. We started with a more corporate-oriented delivery of services and products. But in the last 5 years, we have become more focused on retail and on all the new digital trends like consumer e-commerce and fintech. So, I think in the next 5 to 10 years, we will be ready to become one of the most relevant banks in Mexico. We are just going to be leveraging the digital tools, products and services in order to be one of the most important banks in Mexico.

Prakash: Raul, thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you. We know Banca Mifel is doing a lot of good things in Mexico and is one of the leading banks that is serving the underprivileged community out there. And you, in your position on the technology side, are playing a key role in making sure the bank takes the right leap in terms of transformation as you move forward. Now, coming to the market trends that are shaping the banking industry in Mexico, could you speak a few things about what are the key trends which are shaping the strategies out there and how is Banca Mifel adopting that strategy in your transformation initiatives within the bank?

Raul: Hi Prakash. Thank you for the invitation. First of all, what we see as part of the trends is generative AI, digital banking and cloud computing. With generative AI, the focus is how we can provide the customers with more contextualized but secure interactions, and in terms of fraud prevention and anti-money laundering, how to extend the security to the customers. With digital banking, during and after the pandemic situation that the world went through, we created more interactive applications in banking to provide our services. And what we see is a trend towards greater transactionality in terms of mobile banking instead of physically going to branches. Lastly, with cloud computing, what we see is a trend of using more applications on the cloud. Yes, obviously we have regulatory challenges, but what we are looking at is how we can move most of the applications to the cloud and Infosys Finacle is helping us do that.

Prakash: Arturo, welcome and thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak to you. As the Chief Information Officer and a key executive of the bank, with your bank's mission of providing financial services to the underprivileged communities, what would you identify as the top three priorities for Banca Mifel in the coming years?

Arturo: Thank you, Prakash. It's a pleasure to be here. Providing financial services to underprivileged communities is one of the strategic targets for the bank. We are clear that to make that possible, we need to make these services easy to acquire, easy to use and very secure. To make the services easy to acquire, we are developing a digital onboarding platform which is very easy to use, so that the communities can efficiently consume the products and services. Also, we are putting a lot of effort into creating new banking solutions to meet all our customers’ payment needs. Lastly, we are very serious with respect to security. We are investing a lot in cybersecurity to make all our services very secure.

Prakash: That’s very good, Arturo. Considering the market trends and the strategy of Banca Mifel to transform itself into a leading digital bank in the next few years, what is your take on cloud and how important it is for Banca Mifel to have a cloud native strategy for this transformation.

Arturo: Well, for me, cloud is the main enabler for digital transformation. In that sense, I do believe that in the next few years, all the work will be in the cloud in some way. So, for us the adoption of cloud environment is strategic. Therefore, we are moving all our system into the cloud environment. We expect that with our partnership with Finacle, we can make that possible over the next few years.

Prakash: Great. And finally, how has your experience been with Finacle in this transformation journey and what are some of the things that you look forward to in this partnership in the coming years?

Arturo: Finacle has been a part of Banca Mifel’s journey for more than 10 years and I believe that it has been a very successful partnership. So now, we have to take this relationship to the next level starting early next year with the upcoming initiative of upgrading the current version of Finacle for the bank. We expect that it will be a very successful implementation, and we will continue to strengthen this relationship with Finacle for many more years.

Prakash: Thank you so much, Arturo. I really appreciate your time and look forward to a long partnership as we transform Banca Mifel to be the ‘bank of tomorrow’ in Mexico. Thank you again.