By Barry Tarrant, Director, Product Solutions, Fiserv

Over the years, financial institutions have faced a myriad of changes in regulations, technology and customer expectations. Banks are now having to deal with the competing demands of maintenance and compliance on the one hand, and the need to innovate and deliver value-added services on the other. The balance of effort is increasingly consumed by the former with the share of investment in innovation and value generation being squeezed.

COVID-19 has changed customer behaviour, which will accelerate the need for more digital innovation, adding further to the demand on technology resources that are already stretched to the limit. While future investment plans may remain uncertain, banks need to consider several factors for their technology strategy, such as efficiency, where to invest and how to reduce capital expenditure.

It is apparent that the traditional approach to implementing and updating technology is no longer sustainable in the long-term.

The true cost of outdated technology

Maintaining technology has always been a challenge. What makes it more important now than ever is that innovation expectations have become far greater and exist on multiple simultaneous fronts. Today, there is more demand for product innovation, alongside the need to deliver consistently across multiple channels. On top of this, banks are facing structural changes, such as the convergence of payments.

Faced with this combination of imperatives, many banks are finding that continuing to maintain their payments technology in-house is no longer the most viable option.

Banks that persist with existing in-house infrastructures are in many cases spending large sums just to keep up, with little left for innovation. This can put them at a distinct disadvantage in today’s digital environment, where challenger banks and fintechs are fully embracing tools like the cloud to optimise operations while delivering truly transformational customer experiences.

Maintaining technology can be quite costly, and leveraging shared payment innovation can result in notable cost savings. Additionally, there are savings to be had in the areas of capital costs, opportunity costs, regulatory or payment scheme compliance costs, and the inevitable one-off costs from technology or infrastructure upgrades.

And as the options available for customers to initiate payments across card and non-card payment rails increase, this will drive a convergence of the technology that supports the processing of those payments, further increasing the demand for change.

In this environment, migrating to an alternative technology strategy, such as PaaS, can be a strategic and cost-effective decision.

Why PaaS?

One solution to mitigate the risks and costs associated with maintaining technology is to outsource payments activity to a PaaS provider. The most obvious advantage here is cost reduction. However, there are many other positive and significant financial benefits that can be realised in terms of reduced capital expenses and the associated effects on balance sheet and free cash flow. This is particularly important in the current environment as capital investment comes under even more scrutiny.

Running a robust platform is a PaaS provider’s primary business, whereas for a bank it is just one of the many areas in which it has to invest. A PaaS provider is compelled to continually reinvest to ensure their technology never stands still long enough to become outdated, while also recruiting high-calibre personnel to support and advance it.

Geographical scale can also add value and increase opportunities for innovation. A PaaS provider with clients around the world sees and delivers innovation globally, which can be redeployed elsewhere rapidly and at a lower cost than custom development. Also, a global processing network can serve as a worldwide payments intelligence network, detecting trends, such as new payment types, consumer payment behaviour and cyberthreats.

One further consideration is how payments have become increasingly commoditised in recent years. As traditional revenue streams from payments have declined, it makes even less financial sense to retain payment processing in-house. By adopting PaaS and benefiting from the associated cost savings, retained payment margins can be maximised, simultaneously freeing up resources that can be diverted to innovation and value-added activities, such as enhancing customer experience and building the franchise.

Debunking the myths

Despite the compelling business case for banks to adopt PaaS, some remain reluctant to do so because of various myths. One example is the belief that outsourcing data is inherently risky. The reality is, in fact, the opposite. PaaS providers have the scale, resources and procedures to address and invest in key priorities – for example, cybersecurity. Keeping things in-house can actually create greater data security risk if resource constraints are an issue.

Budgetary considerations aside, experience and specialist tools are also major points of difference here. A typical bank IT manager might experience two or three major transition projects in their entire career. In contrast, teams at a PaaS provider collectively will have experience successfully delivering many major transformation projects, and will have also developed a whole range of specialised implementation adapters and toolkits that are continually enhanced and expanded.

Be more agile and tactical

When technology becomes outdated it can easily go from an asset to a liability. While COVID-19 has emphasised this reality for some, truly appreciating it requires a comprehensive assessment of existing technology and its long-term impact on business. Outsourcing through PaaS has a wealth of benefits that can radically transform this situation. Financial institutions can become more agile and tactical so they can continue to innovate and provide services that customers demand while differentiating themselves from the competition.