Digitalization at Alfa-Bank

2024

Alfa-Bank leased 6500 sq. m of offices in St. Petersburg for IT divisions

In July 2024, Alfa-Bank signed a lease agreement for 6,500 square meters of office space in St. Petersburg to accommodate its IT divisions. The new office will be located in the Senator business center on 7 Medikov Avenue.

According to Kommersant, the rental rate could range from ₽2300 to ₽2500 per square meter, including VAT. Experts interviewed by the publication note that when renting such a large office block, a discount of 10-15% is possible.

Business center "Senator" on Medikov Avenue in St. Petersburg

The choice of location for expanding the staff of Alfa-Bank's IT specialists is considered successful. Near the new office are the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI," the office of Huawei and the technopark "Lenpoligrafmash," which creates a favorable environment for attracting highly qualified personnel.

Alfa-Bank is already renting the Senator business center located nearby on Maly Prospekt, Petrograd Side, 87. This arrangement will allow the bank to optimize interaction between departments.

According to statistics, in the first half of 2024, the banking sector occupied 38% of the demand for office premises in St. Petersburg. Major transactions in the local real estate market were also carried out by other financial institutions. T-Bank rented the Ferum II business center with an area of ​ ​ 30 thousand square meters. m on the Sverdlovsk embankment, and Sovcombank leased 8 thousand square meters. m in the complex "Flanders Plaza."

Real estate market experts note that in the first half of 2024, the total volume of transactions with office real estate in St. Petersburg reached 270 thousand square meters. m. At the same time, the total area of ​ ​ free offices in the local market decreased by 27% and amounted to 230 thousand square meters. m.

In 2024, the demand for office space in St. Petersburg may reach a record figure of 400 thousand square meters. m. However, it is expected that the activity of the banking sector in this direction may decrease, since the largest credit institutions, such as Sberbank and VTB, have already satisfied their needs for additional space. ^[1]

Creation and implementation of a fully automatic retraining system for AI models put into operation

On June 25, 2024, Alfa-Bank announced the creation and implementation of the first fully automatic retraining system in Russia for artificial intelligence models, the Retrainable AutoML Framework. This innovative development is designed to solve the problem of degradation of the quality of AI models in the process of their use, the press service of the credit institution says. Read more here.

2020

Start using customer facial recognition system when entering branches

On November 23, 2020, it became known about the appearance of facial recognition systems at the entrance to Russian bank branches. One of the first such technology was introduced by Alfa-Bank - he installed it in four offices. In the coming years, the credit institution intends to launch the system in more than 300 branches. Read more here.

Alfa-Bank carried out technological reform and rebuilt the product development process

In his address, published in July 2020 in the annual report of Alfa-Bank, Vladimir Verkhoshinsky, Chief Managing Director, the first deputy chairman of the organization's board, summed up the results of the first year of work as part of the new strategy. He called the introduction of new technologies one of the key factors that helped the bank in 2019 to cope with challenges in the context of a "complicated market environment," and stressed the importance of technological leadership.

Digitalization will become a global trend that will capture all industries, all areas of our lives. And in the competition, those who began to invest in digital infrastructure many years ago win, - said the Chief Managing Director of Alfa-Bank.

According to Verkhoshinsky, in 2019 the bank carried out technological reform. The organization revised all its IT, digital, business projects and radically reduced their number. Important ones have become larger, and the bank refused non-priority ones, which made it possible to redistribute resources to significant areas, explains the top manager of Alfa-Bank.

The goal of each project is the best client experience, he says. One of the important achievements of 2019, Verkhoshinsky also called the large-scale transition of the entire bank to the development of products according to the logic of client paths.

Last year, we rebuilt all processes of product development and implementation of strategic initiatives. Now they are built according to the logic of the so-called client paths. Compact teams of 50 people from all functional divisions of the bank work together to improve the client experience. They have their own budgets and powers that give freedom, the opportunity to be creative, but under the control of an experienced leader, - explained the chief managing director of Alfa-Bank.

Verkhoshinsky recalled that in 2019 Alfa-Bank's Board of Directors approved a new strategy based on three initiatives: the best mobile bank, the first paperless bank and a new generation network. He suggests that the mobile bank will become a center of interaction with individuals and entrepreneurs, it will focus on the widest possible set of products and services of the bank, including those that are available today only in branches.

At the same time, Alfa-Bank does not go into the ideology of mobile only (i.e. the development of only a mobile bank), but will develop all channels of interaction with customers, guided by the principle of mobile first (priority production of products for a mobile bank). According to Alfa-Bank, about 80% of its active retail customer base regularly use the mobile application.

By 2021, Alfa-Bank plans to fully implement the concept of Russia's first paperless universal bank, abandoning paper in branches and back office: wherever it is not a requirement of legislation or customers. In the next three years, the bank will transform the network of branches into a new generation network in order to give customers a qualitatively new customer experience.

Thanks to the digitalization of processes, Alfa-Bank clients will be served in branches without passports and paper documents throughout the list of banking and investment products, having only a smartphone, says Vladimir Verkhoshinsky.

He cited data that already about 60% of cash loans are carried out without paper, using a digital signature. The Bank decided on the target technology of biometrics and began its implementation. In the future - the introduction of more complex technologies.

The target model of Alfa-Bank is phygital (from the English physical + digital), which combines digital innovations with an effective network of physical presence: a minimum of bureaucracy, easy solution of routine issues through a smartphone and at the same time the possibility of live communication with a bank employee in the department. This is exactly what the next generation bank will be.

Vladimir Verkhoshinsky says that the bank has not only developed and implemented many of the technologies necessary for the "new generation" network, for example, VOC - already now, having visited the branch, the client will receive a push notification with which you can assess the level of service. And the first branches of the new format will be opened in 2020.

In addition, in the strategy, we answered an important question "Which way will the bank not go?" We do not plan to build an ecosystem of non-banking businesses, as some market participants do. We want, first of all, to focus on what we can do best - providing high-quality financial products and services, "Alfa-Bank's Chief Managing Director said in his address.

However, this does not mean that the bank is completely abandoning the development of non-banking services, he added. Alfa-Bank develops and will develop them, but in the format of strategic partnerships with other market participants, also not from among banks.

Opening of the Phygital Office

To Moscow In Maroseyka Street, an office Alfa-Bank appeared, made in accordance with the Phygital concept. Phygital - English from physical and digital, a combination of digital and physical channels. In Phygital offices, customers receive both warm human communication and high-quality digital services. Alfa-Bank announced this on June 16, 2020.

What's new in the Phygital office:

• Biometrics. The office recognizes the client in person (if the client has previously agreed to this). There is no need to look at the camera, it is enough for the client to enter the office, and the system will give the employee all the important information: what the name of the client is, what services the bank uses, what problem he came with, what he may be interested in. Face recognition accuracy - 98%.
• Planning a visit. In the mobile application, you can see the workload of the department and choose the preferred time for the visit - the client will be expected by this time.
• No paper. All documents are signed and stored in a smartphone. Each such office will save up to 10 tons of paper per year.
• There are no employee racks and no separate work area. Employees and customers can choose any convenient place to work in the office space and comfortably resolve all issues.

Banks have improved their digital channels in recent years. But the departments remained the same and indistinguishable from each other. At the same time, each major bank tried to open its own "branch of the future" - and all of them remained a kind of showrooms of banking innovations. We presented what bank branches will actually look and work very soon, - said Vladimir Verkhoshinsky, Chief Managing Director of Alfa-Bank. - Following the Phygital office in Maroseyka, we are opening two more branches in Moscow, and in the fall we will begin to scale the experience gained on our network throughout the country.

Alfa-Bank's Phygital office is located in Moscow at 10/1 Maroseyka Street. In the coming months, the bank planned to open two more branches of the future: a small office on the Technopark and a flagship office on the Kuznetsk Bridge. In the fall of 2020, Alfa-Bank will begin a gradual transformation of the entire network, which as of June 2020 has 525 offices in Moscow and the regions. Russia

All conversations of contact center operators began to be analyzed by artificial intelligence

On March 10, 2020, Alfa-Bank announced that all conversations between contact center operators and customers began to be automatically analyzed using artificial intelligence algorithms. Due to this, the financial organization intends to quickly determine the topics of appeals and customer satisfaction, as well as improve service processes. 

As stated in Alfa-Bank, the launched system accurately determines what actions and words of the operator caused a negative reaction of the client, or vice versa, helped the client. Updated recommendations for communicating with the client reach operators in no more than one day.

Thanks to the recommendations of the system, Alfa-Bank's contact center increased sales to retail customers by 9.3%  and by 12.4% in the small and medium-sized business segment. In addition, the system helped the bank earn 30 million rubles due to sales growth, optimization of service processes and a decrease in customer outflow. By the end of 2020, it is expected to receive additional profit from artificial intelligence of 200 million rubles, said Ivan Pyatkov, director of digital business, member of the board of Alfa-Bank, whose words are quoted in a press release.

The pilot project of the voice analytics system, which we conducted in 2019 , exceeded all our expectations, "he said.

Using the voice analytics system, the bank is finalizing its smart voice assistant, with which communication with the client begins - it becomes clearer and gives more useful answers to client questions.

The introduction of voice biometrics is scheduled for the summer of 2020, thanks to which the bank will be able to recognize customers by voice. This will strengthen the security of transactions with accounts, as well as allow customers to receive more services remotely, without visiting the branch, they are confident in Alfa-Bank.^[2]

2019

Member of the Board of Alfa-Bank Sergei Polyakov at TAdviser SummIT - about the turning point in the digitalization of the banking industry

Speaking at TAdviser SummIT on November 27, 2019, Sergei Polyakov, Chief Information Officer and Member of Alfa-Bank's Management Board, focused on understanding the point of the fundamental turning point in which the banking industry is today.

Digitalization went quickly and somewhat unexpectedly, "he said. - Once banking activity was transactional, global leaders of industry IT solutions grew well in this paradigm. But today the flow of information is far from a flow of transactions, it is a much broader concept.

Sergei Polyakov sees the main problem point of the modern state of banking automation in the fact that "support for all new processes of working with data was loaded on old transactional platforms, the" springs "of supporting processes were somewhat flushed, but still held."

It was this state of banking IT systems that prompted the Chief information officer of Alfa-Bank to give its report the title "Digitalization 2.0: It's Time to Grow Up." On the one hand, associations with adolescent infantilism are unexpected for an industry that traditionally holds leading positions in IT. On the other hand, the transition to a qualitatively new level of informatization is implied, which involves a radical change in the classic banking IT platforms.

Old platforms, in fact, of the model of the 90s, are not able to support the operation of systems at the level of modern requirements, because today we are talking about continuous digital interaction, - stated Sergei Polyakov. - Alfa-Bank is a very powerful transactional platform, but we still feel difficulties.

Among these difficulties, for example, are the practical limitations of Agile's fashion methodology.

Agile went well in our bank, - Sergei Polyakov shared his experience. - Teams started baking services like patties. But at some point, simple services ended, there were complex ones that could not be done in one sprint.

The Speaker raised the question with an edge: "Will it really have to return to the old design approach and the" waterfall "development model?"

According to the representative of Alfa-Bank, the idea of ​ ​ two-speed IT, which arose several years ago just as a response to a change in the situation with data processing in informatized banks, does not solve all problems. The main reason is that the complex internal integrations that are required to implement complex services are becoming a serious technological problem. In fact, technologies that should improve the time-to-market parameter began to worsen it precisely in connection with integration problems, Sergei Polyakov believes.

In the direction of internal integration, banking IT systems went through two major stages. The first was about implementing an end-to-end client request in a remote access channel to back-end in digital format, that is, first of all, from excluding manual operations. The second added automatic adoption of complex decisions based on the available data.

Today, Sergei Polyakov believes, the time has come for another round of integration.

Today, the dialogue with the bank is initiated by the client. And we want the bank to initiate communications with the client based on the maximum amount of data about him, "he explained.

Among other key problems of the modern state of IT in banks, Sergei Polyakov sees the human factor. But also from a somewhat unexpected side: IT specialists come to banks from other areas of activity and do not have experience in working with transactional systems. At the same time, it is transactional systems that allow you to see the essence of banking processes.

Figuratively speaking, a bank is not a social network, the speaker is sure. - Banks have very different tasks. For them, the transactional integrity parameter is critically important, which does not matter to the social network.

From this, by the way, Polyakov makes an unambiguous conclusion on the topic of the famous discussion "Banks vs. Fintech": "Fintech will not be able to devour banking, because banking is an order of magnitude more difficult."

The "prescription of treatment" of these problems, issued by the Chief information officer of Alfa-Bank, includes the following points:

• Reduce the burden on transactional platforms. The challenge is to no longer invest in transactional solutions;
• The popular end-to-end approach today has greatly complicated the technical landscape. It makes sense to return to a platform approach, but at a new level of comprehension. In particular, to create a "Smart Integration Layer," which, among other things, relieves the load from transactional platforms;
• Ensure that transactional business interacts harmoniously with digital technologies. The interaction of experienced veterans of transactional business and fintech specialists is complicated by the fact that it is realized largely in the cultural plane;
• Address the disparity of customer data. Combining all information, up to operational, momentary, is a separate task that requires separate methods of semantic integration, in particular, on the basis of the mathematical apparatus of ontologies.

Ontological integration is a very important element in the development of the bank's digitalization process, - Sergei Polyakov is sure.

The final thesis of Sergei Polyakov's report at TAdviser SummIT clearly demonstrates at what stage of IT transformation the banking sector is today: "We are trying to realize the scale of the task." Once again and at a new level of awareness.

О TAdviser SummIT

TAdviser SummIT was held in Moscow on November 27, 2019 and attracted more than 700 participants - heads and experts of IT divisions of the largest companies and government departments of Russia, representatives of IT developers and contractors. During the event, the prospects for digital transformation of business and government agencies, the development of technologies, products and services were discussed. The conference was supported by the Ministry of Digital Development. It was attended by the head of the department Konstantin Noskov, who, during an open discussion, summed up the first results of the Digital Economy national program. In total, about 60 reports were made in the plenary part and five thematic sections. The event was held in 5 halls of Radisson Blu Olympiyskiy.

Alfa-Bank customers will be recognized by face at the entrance to the branches

Alfa-Bank customers will be recognized by face at the entrance to the branches. This became known in mid-October 2019.

As RBC writes with reference to the managing director of the bank, Vladimir Verkhoshinsky, with the help of biometrics and geolocation, consultants will be able to find out information about the client in advance even before they start communicating with him.

Information about the user will be displayed on special tablets of bank employees. It is planned to display the profile of the bank visitor and offer a list of services suitable for him. It will be possible to confirm operations using biometrics without presenting documents.

Alfa-Bank expects to introduce "Phygital-format" (physical + digital) in 100% of its branches - this is 420 points (by mid-October 2019).

The credit institution intends to test the new concept of working with the client until mid-2020, and the most successful ideas will be deployed throughout the network. By the end of 2021, about 20% of branches will be reformatted, and by 2022 − 2024 it is planned to update all branches. The bank needs to spend about 1.5 billion rubles on this, Verkhoshinsky calculated.

According to him, the most expensive in this process is technology, only for one front-CRM, able to recognize the client and offer him suitable services, the bank spends several million dollars a year, Verkhoshinsky said.

Elena Ustyugova, head of KPMG's strategic and operational consulting group in Russia and the CIS, believes that more and more operations will be carried out through digital channels, and bank branch networks will be optimized, but there will remain operations that require physical interaction. Because of this, the "Phygital format" may become a new standard, she believes.

The creation of such branches will require significant investments in IT technologies, personnel training and infrastructure, said Maxim Nalyutin, head of the group for providing services to companies in the financial sector of Deloitte CIS^[3]

Alfa-Bank chief information officer becomes a member of the Management Board

In August 2019, Sergei Polyakov, who oversees the information technology unit at Alfa-Bank, was elected a member of the bank's management board in accordance with a decision adopted by the credit institution's board of directors. Earlier, his candidacy was agreed by the Bank of Russia. Read more here.

Alfa-Bank spent $1.5 million on biometric technologies that customers did not need

From January to August 2019, Alfa-Bank spent about $1.5 million on the development of the infrastructure of the unified biometric system (EBS), but these investments did not materialize.

Of the $1.5 million Alfa-Bank spent on biometrics, most of the costs came from the technologies needed to process and secure the collected data. The bank spent approximately $100-150 thousand on the purchase of data collection equipment.

So far, the cost of building all this infrastructure is highly redundant. We incurred expenses, but, unfortunately, the equipment is still idle, in fact, - quotes the words of the director of digital business of Alfa-Bank Ivan Pyatkov Forbes magazine.

According to him, in the first eight months of 2019, Alfa-Bank managed to connect 354 branches to a single biometric system. However, customers are in no hurry to share their data with the bank - since the beginning of the year, only 1,179 people have decided to connect to the system.

Due to such results, the bank does not plan to launch services based on biometrics. According to representatives of Alfa-Bank, customers do not understand why they need to submit their data to the EBS.

Initially, it was assumed that this would allow customers to remotely open bank accounts and conclude transactions. But our communication with clients shows that if a client wants to open an account with a new bank, he sees no problem in visiting a branch of this bank, - explains Ivan Pyatkov.

In his opinion, the driver of the development of the EBS could be the connection of state services to it. For example, if biometrics allowed customs checks at the airport without a queue and contact with the border guard.^[4]

Alfa-Bank introduces AI-based AutoFAQ platform into HR-Help Desk

On August 14, 2019, Alfa-Bank announced the introduction of a platform based on AI technologies from AutoFAQ, which will add an intelligent component to the work of the HR-Help Desk. Thanks to the platform, bank employees automatically receive HR-related consultations within a second, and Alfa-Bank optimizes the routine work of operators and forms a unified knowledge base. Read more here.

Alfa-Bank transfers a fifth of branches to biometrics and smartphone service

On June 26, 2019, it became known about the transfer of some offices Alfa-Bank to service without a passport. biometric The and data will be used for customer identifications. smartphone

As soon as we think we are ready, we will begin scaling. I hope that at least 20% of our branches out of all 400 will be transferred to a new format by the end of 2021, "Vladimir Verkhoshinsky, Chief Managing Director of Alfa Bank, told RBC.

According to him, the client at the bank branch will receive a notification on the phone, which will allow him to confirm his identity using face recognition or a fingerprint. After that, the electronic version of the contract will come to the user in the mobile application.

Verkhoshinsky added that it is too early to talk about the cost of introducing such departments. The new identification will allow the bank to significantly save money, says Alexander Saraev, Managing Director for Bank Ratings at Expert RA. 

Refusal to identify a paper document will speed up work, but not significantly, says Lilia Sharovatova, senior manager of technological practice in risk consulting at KPMG in Russia and the CIS. In her opinion, banks will receive a much greater effect from the implementation of remote identification and service without visiting branches, as this will not only reduce operating costs, but also significantly improve customer experience.

The management of Alfa-Bank claims that digitalization will not lead to a reduction in staff, but will save from queues and improve the quality of service.

The national program "Digital Economy" provides for the creation of a unified digital environment of trust, as well as the development of promising identification technologies (including biometrics). By the end of June 2019 , Alfa-Bank branches, at the request of the client, use biometric identification.^[5]

TAdviser interview: Alfa-Bank Chief Information Officer Sergei Polyakov - on the upcoming digitalization 2.0

In June 2019, the Chief information officer Alfa-Bank Sergei Polyakov spoke in an interview with the editor-in-chief TAdviser Alexander Levashov about the new - complex and expensive - stage of digitalization and his views on approaches to IT management.

Approved a development strategy for 2019-2021. with an emphasis on business digitalization

On April 4, 2019, Alfa-Bank announced the approval of the development strategy for 2019-2021 by the Bank's Board of Directors. The main goal stated in the strategy is the transition of Alfa-Bank to the next technological level, which should become the basis for increasing the profitability and growth of the financial institution's market share.

According to the "concentrated growth" strategy, the bank will maintain the continuity of the task of doubling market positions, while focusing its work on three key areas:

• Mobile bank development:
  • As planned by Alfa-Bank, the mobile bank should become a center of interaction with individuals and entrepreneurs, it is planned to focus the widest possible range of products and services of the bank, including those that are still available only in branches. At the same time, Alfa-Bank does not go into the ideology of mobile only (that is, the development of only a mobile bank), but will develop all channels of interaction with customers, guided by the principle of mobile first (priority production of products for a mobile bank).

• Paper waiver:
  • By 2021, Alfa-Bank intends to fully implement the concept of the first paperless universal bank in Russia, abandoning paper in branches and back office: wherever it is not a requirement of legislation or customers. This will be achieved through the active use of biometrics and the widespread introduction of electronic digital signatures into client and back-office operations of both individuals and legal entities. Customers will have the opportunity to be served in departments without a passport and cards, only with a smartphone.

• Digital transformation of branches:
  • In the next three years, the bank intends to transform the network of branches into a network of the next generation, which will give customers a qualitatively new customer experience. Thanks to the digitalization of processes, Alfa-Bank customers will be able to be served in branches without a passport and paper documents throughout the list of banking and investment products, having only a smartphone.

At the same time, the key financial goals of the strategy provide for the growth of the client loan portfolio to $45 billion in 2021 under IFRS, an increase in commission income to $1.4 billion in 2021. From 2021, the bank expects to fully cover operating costs through risk-free income.

According to Alfa-Bank's strategy, business growth should be accompanied by an increase in operational efficiency - for example, according to the bank's expectations, the CIR (Cost Income Ratio) indicator in 2021 will be consistently no higher than 38% - and maintaining high profitability (ROE ~ 15%). Due to this, the financial organization expects to increase its capital to almost $9 billion in 2021.

The strategy also provides for a significant increase in the client base: for example, in 2021, the number of retail clients should reach 7.4 million people, the number of clients in the micro and small business segment should exceed 600 thousand, and medium-sized businesses - 75 thousand companies. This corresponds to an increase ~ 50% in each of these segments.

In retail lending, the bank sets the task of multiplying the growth of portfolios: the portfolio of credit cards should increase 2 times, cash loans - 2.7 times, mortgages - 7.5 times. According to Alfa-Bank's calculations, such dynamics will double the share in the retail lending market and achieve the target of ~ 5.3% in 2021.

In turn, the strategy provides for a fourfold increase in lending to micro and small businesses with portfolio growth to more than $1.4 billion. At the same time, the growth rate of the corporate and investment business will correspond to the market, while maintaining profitability at the current level.

The locomotive of growth in the bank's assets and its profits will be regular business: retail, small and medium-sized businesses. Two years ago, we headed for doubling market share in these segments and have already gone half the way. In 2018, the retail loan portfolio grew by 76%, this year it will grow again by at least one and a half times. The customer base of individuals over the year increased by almost 20%, corporate clients - by 25%. As a result, in 2021, the contribution of regular business to the bank's profit will be 70%. As of April 2019, this share is 50%, - said Vladimir Verkhoshinsky, Chief Managing Director of Alfa-Bank.

2018

Launch of customer biometric data collection in all regions of presence

On December 28, 2018, Alfa-Bank reported that 99 branches of the bank throughout Russia began collecting biometric data of customers for registration in the Unified Biometric System. The service is provided free of charge, the procedure takes several minutes. Read more here.

New Chief information officer and Head of Remote Sales Channels

On November 15, Alfa Bank announced new personnel appointments. Ivan Pyatkov from VTB Group will oversee all remote sales channels, be responsible for mobile and Internet bank, website, CRM and contact center. This is a new position, the exact position has not yet been determined.

Former member of the board of the Moscow Exchange Sergei Polyakov was appointed head of the IT block. In this position, he replaced Alexander Sakharov, who left the bank. As in his previous place of work, Polyakov will oversee the information technology unit, be responsible for the IT strategy, in particular, changing the system of interaction between IT and the main business. Kommersant spoke about personnel changes with reference to messages from bank employees.^[6]

The new managers will be subordinate to the Chief Managing Director (CEO) of Alfa-Bank Vladimir Verkhoshinsky.

The press service of Alfa-Bank confirmed the information about the appointments to the publication, noting that as a result, "the stage of forming a team of top managers has been completed." It began with the arrival of Vladimir Verkhoshinsky in the bank.

Since his appointment in August, he has introduced ten new employees to the management of Alfa-Bank, some of whom have replaced the previous ones, and some have received specially created positions. In particular, Mr. Verkhoshinsky appointed a new head of the corporate and investment block, medium-sized businesses, the head of the mortgage business, changed the operating director, marketing director, strategic development, head of the HR department. From January, the head of a single office network will appear in the bank - the ex-board of Binbank Sergey Shevchenko.

We have finished the stage of forming a top team, - Vladimir Verkhoshinsky himself confirmed to Kommersant.

It is noted that new participants will bring their practical experience and current market practices to the team. At the same time, the bank's strategic goal is to "double its market share and become an undeniable technological leader." From the new strategy of the bank it follows that we are talking about achieving an average market share of 8-9% within five years.

Alexander Sakharov appointed head of IT block

In June 2018, Alexander Sakharov replaced Martin Piletsky as head of the Information Technologies unit of Alfa-Bank.

Implementation of electronic signing of documents in offices

All branches of the Alfa-Bank retail network use the service of electronic signing of documents - a session report, receipts in receipt of a bank card, applications for closing a client's account - all these documents can be signed by customers either by entering the PIN code of their card, or by receiving a confirmation code from an SMS message. The signing of these documents is a significant share in the department's document flow and is most often used in work.

"Such a process halved the processing time and allowed to increase the speed of service in the department by automatically signing and sending to the electronic archive, as well as significantly reduced the paper document flow of the departments. Now employees will be able to devote even more time to consulting clients on the products and services of the bank, as well as solving their personal financial problems, "commented Tatyana Voloshina, sales ​direktor of Alfa-Bank's Retail Business unit

.

Joining the R3 Consortium

Alfa-Bank's membership in the R3 association will make it possible to take another qualitative step in the development of blockchain systems for the entire domestic banking industry and in the future will provide customers with more convenient and affordable product solutions.

"Joining the blockchain-R3 is an important milestone in the integration of Alfa-Bank, the first Russian member bank, and later the entire Russian banking community into the latest global financial infrastructure," said Maria Shevchenko, Chief Operating Officer of Alfa-Bank. "This is a great opportunity, together with leading players in the global market, to create new tools for making financial transactions, as well as significantly speed up settlements on transactions and reduce the cost of individual transactions."

The first project within the framework of R3 will be the prince of KYC (Know Your Customer). Most likely, the bank will choose a priority direction to work with foreign counterparties on documentary letters of credit. 24 banks are participating in the application testing project.

Alfa-Bank has widely implemented DevOps culture and is learning to consider its financial effect

Alfa-Bank brought the number of DevOps teams in the company to about 40, Martin Piletsky, head of the IT bank block, told TAdviser in March 2018. In the annual report for 2016, the bank cited data on 21 such teams. Thus, over the year, their number has almost doubled.

DevOps (acronym for English development and operations) is a software development methodology focused on the extremely active interaction and integration of developers, testers and admins who synchronously serve the common service/product for them.

DevOps culture has spread to the blocks of mass business, digital products and client relations of Alfa-Bank. IT resources were transferred to them and processes were created. With the beginning of the implementation of DevOps in these blocks, they agreed that it is necessary to work not only at the level of "business business" and "business development," but also to cover the level of support.

Among the products, services and processes that have already been transferred to DevOps from different levels of team maturity are those related to opening accounts, claim work, work around the new front end and others, Martin Pilecki told TAdviser.

At the same time, as of the beginning of the year, not a single team has yet reached the absolute maturity of using DevOps at all levels at once - IT, business level and support. Achieving full maturity in DevOps practice for the bank is a matter of 2-3 years, says the head of Alfa-Bank's IT unit.

In 2016-2017, Alfa-Bank learned how to build metrics to assess the use of DevOps in the company, including the level of maturity of teams. In 2018, the bank must learn how to measure the financial impact of DevOps.

Being a private bank, we look, first of all, at the economic efficiency of projects, - said Pilecki. - The fact that DevOps is fashionable, and that many people use it, is a good argument to start the process, but ultimately, a transfer to monetary indicators is required.

According to the representative of Alfa-Bank, due to the introduction of DevOps practices, significant acceleration at the level of IT sites was achieved, but if you look at the entire product withdrawal chain, at the entire project from beginning to end, the goal is to achieve acceleration by about 7-8 times compared to the classic project cycle. At the beginning of 2018, acceleration in projects has been achieved by an average of 3-4 times, Pilecki shared with TAdviser.

My opinion may be at odds with the conventional one, but I believe that flexible practices generally work well in companies where there is a strong, one might say, even somewhat crazy leader. The way Steve Jobs was, for example, on a global scale. Such people can really change the company, "he said.

SWIFT gpi service

Alfa-Bank was the first in Russia to use SWIFT gpi service, which increases the speed, transparency and predictability of cross-border payments for its customers. Since January 2018, this information payment service has also become available to Alfa-Bank customers.

SWIFT gpi allows Alfa-Bank to solve key problems of its LORO respondents, corporate and private clients, including insufficient transparency of international settlements. With the help of the innovative Internet application gpi Tracker, Alfa-Bank monitors the payment status in real time, and also checks the information for each bank on the payment route, including fees charged at each stage. This service provides Alfa-Bank customers with an unprecedented level of transparency and control over each payment. The Tracker system provides for real-time confirmations to be sent to both counterparties whenever a payment is received by the ultimate beneficiary. SWIFT gpi provides the ability to receive and use funds on the day of sending, as well as increased speed, certainty and predictability of payment movement for all categories of customers.

Alfa-Bank began to recognize customer emotions in real time

Alfa-Bank launched a pilot to analyze customer emotions in real time in its branches, the bank said on January 30, 2018. Alfa-Bank claims that this is the first such experience in Russia, and that there are no such solutions working in real time in the financial market yet.

As part of the pilot project, the recognition of emotions in the face is tested: the client comes to the department, the camera looks at him, and the algorithm developed by the bank assesses the client's perception of the bank based on the results of the service.

Our solution is based on the model of integral assessment of emotions of own development. In the course of working on the concept, we compared the existing solutions with each other, and based on the results of the pilot we expect to close all risks, gain experience with the new technology, and also collect data for further analytics, "said Anatoly Petrov, head of the R&D department of the Information Technologies unit of Alfa-Bank.

Petrov explained to TAdviser that the innovation of the Alfa-Bank pilot is that the mathematical model integrated on top of the technology for removing emotions from the video stream allows you to build an integral indicator of satisfaction, identify trends in the change in the emotional perception of visiting the department, and give an overall assessment from the visit.

The company cannot talk in more detail about which vendors the company attracted and what solutions were considered before the pilot was completed, he said.

Petrov stressed that the company has already received confirmation of the connection between the indicators of customer emotions with real sales and found cases of monetization of the solution.

In the future, this data will be used to build more personalized sentences, "he added.

The pilot project was launched in one metropolitan branch, told TAdviser in Alfa-Bank. In the near future, it is planned to launch in another branch, since this technology, according to representatives of the bank, is of particular interest. It provides the opportunity to collect feedback from the client without surveys and calls, measure the level of satisfaction with the service in the department. And this, in turn, makes it possible to make processes better, products are more interesting, the service is more convenient, Alfa-Bank said in a statement.

2017

Alfa-Bank transformed the IT block and opened an innovation center in Ulyanovsk

In 2017, the organization of the Information Technologies unit Alfa-Bank underwent significant changes. The bank reported on them in the annual report published in the summer of 2018. The bank calls the unification of three IT development departments (development for the Mass Business block, for a retail bank and a corporate bank) into one whole as an important event. Since their merger, the bank has developed uniform standards and approaches to technologies, combined management structures and achieved more effective development management, the report says.

In 2017, developers from Alfa Laboratory also joined the combined developers. Alfa-Bank notes that after joining them, many professionals appeared in the IT team, whose average age is less than 30 years.

This is a big advantage for us, because they look at the bank with a fresh look. In addition, Alfa-Lab has added an additional element of teamwork to IT, in which the border between IT and business is erased, when new technologies penetrate business processes, and classic IT with its high quality of development helps to maintain a high level of implementation of those ideas that are created within Alfa Laboratory, "the bank says.

Along with the reorganization of development, many IT functions at Alfa-Bank were transferred to business units, and the IT unit now only oversees their implementation. The business is responsible for many operations on its own, and the IT department monitors that the same function does not repeat many times, decides how to combine functions with each other and delegate different elements within the business.

Alfa-Bank notes that the fact that in 2017 the perception of its role within the bank changed, and the IT department began to work according to the rules of the business unit, is of great importance for the work of the IT unit. For example, the practice of production contracts was introduced, within the framework of which the mutual obligations of the IT department and business lines were spelled out. Changes to these contracts were made on a quarterly basis, and the fulfillment of the contracts by the parties was evaluated at the same frequency.

In 2017, Alfa-Bank also created a Center for Operational Innovation in Ulyanovsk. As of mid-2018, it employs a little more than 20 people, told TAdviser in Alfa-Bank. The creation of the center was the result of the start of joint activities of the IT division and the operational unit in the field of robotization. The Robotics Process Automation () team works at the center RPA as a strategic partner of the IT unit. Together they are engaged in the "last mile" - process optimization, robotization, artificial intelligence.

Alfa-Bank Chief Operating Officer Maria Shevchenko explained to TAdviser that the bank's operating center is located in Ulyanovsk, it concentrates many operational functions, which is why it was decided to place the Operational Innovation Center there.

Thanks to this, specialists from the Center for Operational Innovation can directly investigate the bank's operational processes, test hypotheses, conduct pilot projects, and so on. In addition, the IT personnel market is well developed in Ulyanovsk - there are many specialized universities, respectively, there is no shortage of the necessary specialists, - said Shevchenko in a conversation with TAdviser.

The first results of this team were robotization and the exclusion of human participation from a number of routine operational processes. These include: processing payments, responding to standard requests, processing contract financing transactions, changing customer data on the application, making changes to individuals' loan agreements on their applications, disassembling internal incoming mail and processing payments, the purpose of which is not indicated. The robotization program of the operational unit will last until the end of 2018, upon its completion, more than 30 processes will have to be carried out without human participation.

According to Maria Shevchenko, one of the key areas of work of the Alfa-Bank Operational Innovation Center is machine learning technology. In particular, the center is working to improve the quality of document recognition.

Closing the Digital Projects Division

On August 1, 2017, it became known about the closure of Alfa-Bank's digital projects division - Alfa-Laboratory (AlfaLab). The relatively weak performance of the project compared to competitors is affected.

Several market participants told the Kommersant newspaper about the disbandment of Alfa-Bank's digital product development division. One of them said that the bank made the decision to close at the end of May 2017. The unit employed about 350 people, but the company will have no more than 30 employees who will focus on finding new business ideas - for example, working with the Skolkovo Foundation.

We do not want to continue to build a new culture only within the dedicated unit. We want to change and develop the entire bank. Therefore, we integrate many teams, processes and culture of Alfa Laboratory into all business lines of the bank, "Alfa Bank said, stressing that the division will not be completely disbanded, but will focus on innovations.

Alpha Laboratory was established in 2013. Among its products are Alfa Click, Alfa-Mobile, Alfa Business Online, and the money transfer application O! pp. Market participants note that this division has implemented hundreds of services for the client, and also pioneered a number of them. In particular, it was Alfa Laboratory that was the first to create contactless payment and cash withdrawal services using a mobile phone, made the first transaction with a letter of credit for blockchain technologies together with S7 and developed the Potok small business lending platform.

The interlocutors of the publication say that the abolition of Alfa Laboratory is due to low work results compared to the projects of other credit institutions. Thus, according to the Usabilitylab rating, Alfa-Bank ranks fourth among mobile applications, and sixth among Internet banks. In the rating of the efficiency of Internet banks for individuals Markswebb Rank & Report, Alfa-Bank ranks fourth.^[7]

Accelerate IT development 60x with DevOps culture

Alfa-Bank considers the introduction of a culture of flexible design one of its main achievements in IT in 2016. This follows from the bank's annual report, published at the end of June 2017.

{{quote 'In 2016, we took a big step towards DevOps culture - a culture of flexible design and integration of operational and design procedures - and were able to create in IT block an atmosphere steeped in the ideology of total automation, says the annual report.}}

Alfa-Bank claims that due to the use of "the best world DevOps practices" over the year, the number of changes to the IT systems of the focus group, as well as the speed of preparation of each such change has increased. In key focus areas, development and implementation accelerated 60 times, the bank said in its annual report.

As a result of the work, four key product teams of the bank were able to create fully automatic end-to-end "pipelines" for the delivery of updates to business products from developers to industrial operation and, due to this, "multiply" reduce the delivery time of such updates to the client. Everyone was involved in this work: from product owners to administrators, their accompanying.

In the most successful commands, the automatic pipeline allows you to deliver changes to the industrial environment in no more than one day, taking into account all the necessary tests and operations. The place of administrators and testers is taken by "automated administrators and" automated testers, "the bank says.

{{quote 'In 2017, we plan to transfer 21 more food companies to DevOps thinking du, form a full-fledged DevOps community within the company and distribute this successful experience for other projects of the bank, - notes in the annual report of Alfa-Bank.}}

The innovative division of Alfa-Laboratory Bank was the first to apply flexible design and development methodologies. Since 2015, with the help of this division, a flexible approach has been introduced in other divisions of Alfa-Bank.

Earlier, the head of Alfa-Bank's Information Technologies unit, Martin Piletsky, told TAdviser about the bank's new "ambitious" IT strategy for 2017-2019, which emphasizes Agile culture and the integration of DevOps into the IT block. More details about it are below in the block "New ambitious IT strategy of Alfa-Bank."

How the bank learned to work with Cloud

Why the cloud bank ^[8]:

• Flexible, scalable infrastructure
• Effective Data Center Utilization Strategy
• Ability to create new products

• OPEN SOURCE - conducted experiments with, OpenStack difficult to accompany, ^[9]
• Tried a PUBLIC quota in Azure Public cloud-made infrastructure for NT in the external cloud, showed that you can get comparable test results with physical equipment in the bank.
• COST ESTIMATE - ~ 100,000 rubodin NT stand per month
• The transition to the PRIVATE quota is over, and the Cloud liked the flexibility - made Private cloud
• COMPETITIVE WORK - Several commands started working with Private cloud in parallel - infrastructure support, Performance Expertise Center, support for test environments

Prerequisites for Private

• Not all processes are ready for effective use Public-there was no automatic creation of environments, automatic data depersonification, etc.
• There is a volume of hardware that can be used more efficiently by deploying Private Cloud

Private Cloud Now

• Self-Service Portal - Virtual Machine Management, Templates Created
• API for automatic creation of resources in the Cloud
• Know how to integrate Azure with Jenkins and other automation tools

Statistics

• 400virtual servers ~ on 500 physical CPU autotests, NT, development
• There are projects with automatic creation of the environment by -IaaC scripts, and manually made environments by users
• Projects: Loyalty programs, Invest Bank, CRM[[]] systems, and friend|]] systems, and friend]]

Teams manage Cloud resources themselves through a self-service portal

• There is Cloud usage monitoring
• There is a'coach' who monitors the use of resources by teams and plans to add them

What does OPS do?

• Accompanies Cloud: Cloud Software Update, New HW Installation
• Accompanies/refines the cloud management API with automated scripts
• Prepares virtual machine images for commands

Summary:

• Flexible infrastructure accelerates product creation
• The current state of the cloud is mature enough for large organizations to use
• The bank's strategy is aimed at a noticeable increase in the share of cloud resources in the bank's infrastructure: up to 60% by 2019
• The share of cloud resources in the organization for 2017 ~ 18%
• Cloud Financial Performance Monitoring Challenges Are an Unresolved Problem and Key to Cloud Usage

Alfa-Bank summarizes its cooperation with Double Data and makes investments

In June 2017, Alfa-Bank signed a strategic partnership framework agreement with a resident of Skolkovo - Double Data to scale the process of digital transformation and the introduction of technologies for processing and analyzing large amounts of data.

This agreement will allow Alfa-Bank to increase the number of projects being implemented to extract valuable knowledge from information arrays for the development of new products and approaches to customer service, and the startup will reach a new level of monetization of its own developments: in June, as part of an agreement signed in Skolkovo between Alfa-Bank and Double Data, the company will receive about $0.5 million.

See more about company projects here.

2016

TAdviser IT Unit Manager Interview

In October 2016, Martin Piletskiv interviewed TAdviser about the new IT strategy of the financial institution, optimizing the IT budget and the most important projects.

Alfa-Bank changes "pontic" IT suppliers to "garage"

According to the new IT strategy, Alfa-Bank is changing the principles of working with contractors. Martin Pilecki, head of the Information Technology unit, spoke in an October 2016 interview with TAdviser about key changes.

First, the bank plans to reduce the number of outsourcing and do a lot on its own. Previously, in some areas, the use of outsourcing reached 100%. "This has happened historically," explains Martin Pilecki. Now the bank will do a lot on its own.

I think that about 1/3, maybe even up to half of the services, we will buy in the market, but at the same time we will have our own competencies. Thus, we will not depend to a very large extent on vendors, - explains the head of the IT unit, considering this a more effective approach.

Secondly, taking over some of the functions of contractors, Alfa-Bank now seeks to retain the rights to the source codes of the software that is being developed for it. According to the head of the IT block, they often stayed with developers before.

Now intellectual property is a greater value for us, and we often conduct thorough negotiations with suppliers on the issue of who and to what extent it will belong upon completion of work, as well as how it can be disposed of, says Martin Pilecki.

Third, Alfa-Bank has already begun to change large, well-known suppliers to small and little-known ones.

We are moving away from large, "cool," "pontic" suppliers to smaller ones. We can say, including those who work in the garage. Sometimes very valuable things are created in garages. Often, it is with garages that large successful companies begin, but then, when they grow up, they often become "pontic," and quality suffers. We began to divide companies by the real values ​ ​ they create, and not by image, - notes Pilecki.

According to him, the bank has already severed relations with two large partners (which it does not disclose). Having terminated relations with the first, the bank received a benefit of about 3 million euros. Having refused to work with the second, Martin Pilecki expects even greater benefits. "In both cases, we are talking, of course, not about a one-time win, but about a lower TCO (the total amount of target costs - ed.) For several years," he explains.

The fourth major change is a shift to a more flexible relationship with suppliers. Previously, the bank hired them for a clearly fixed range of work on volumes, terms and payment. "Now we are moving on to another principle: we are negotiating with suppliers so that they become part of our Agile team and participate in the project as a resource," says Martin Pilecki.

Thus, all key changes are aimed at "learning how to develop faster, better and cheaper."

Over the past three years, Alfa-Bank has reduced its IT budget by 20%. According to Pilecki, "they optimized costs for almost everything" - for the state, for licenses (transferring them from the currency plane to the ruble plane), they also saved by replacing some of the proprietary technologies with open source and abandoning third-party support for a number of systems.

In 2017, the bank's budget will be at this year's level or slightly higher. The exact figures in the bank are not disclosed.

Alfa-Bank's ambitious new IT strategy

Alfa-Bank forms a new "ambitious" IT strategy for 2017-2019. Martin Pilecki, head of the Information Technologies Block, told TAdviser in September 2016 that at the end of the year it is planned to be approved at the level of the bank's board. The ambitiousness of the strategy, he said, is that the bank will try to change correctly in order to respond to the challenges that the world of technology poses to it, and develop its business in such a way as to build good relations with both external and internal clients.

Speaking about the main goals of the new strategy, Pilecki noted that the banking sector is now changing a lot - new technologies appear in it that change the lives of consumers, new competitors come to the market, there are changes from regulators, from the market itself. Against this background, the main goals are to learn how to develop faster, better and cheaper. Competitors who can master this, they will win the client, believes the top manager of Alfa-Bank: "We can talk a lot about monetization, about new technologies - Big Data and others, but behind all this are speed, quality and influence on the client," said Pilecki.

The new strategy focuses on the continued use of the Agile culture and the active integration of advanced project development and implementation technologies (DevOps) into the IT unit. According to Martin Pilecki, the bank began to look closely at the development of the Agile methodology about 3.5 years ago, launching the innovative division of Alfa Laboratory.

They were pioneers in the field of Agile and SCRUM, who greatly changed their attitude to development, to understanding customer requirements, communication in teams. Initially, they were looked at as a laboratory rat, but over the past three years this attitude has changed dramatically, and since last year, with their help, the Agile approach has been introduced into other divisions of the bank, says the top manager of Alfa-Bank.

One of the effects achieved due to Agile and SCRUM is the thoroughness of the development, it has increased significantly. Another of the effects is the understanding on the part of the business of the changes that are taking place in the field of automation. All this shows that the chosen path justifies the trust that the bank has invested in it, Martin Pilecki believes.

A key place in the new strategy, he said, is a change in the culture of interaction between IT and business. The strategy includes many cultural changes aimed at improving the relationship and understanding of business and IT. Martin Pilecki calls culture management one of the most important differences between the new strategy and the previous one.

Culture, if you draw an analogy with physical force, is gravity, which brings people together. DevOps, Agile, SCRUM is culture, IT and business relationships, supplier relationships too. In the previous strategy, the place of culture, one might say, was somewhere from the edge, but now this is its central element, he explains.

The strategy also involves rapidly changing the bank's business processes because markets are changing rapidly and customers will be increasingly sensitive to the price of its services.

Alfa-Bank interacts a lot with the Central Bank, regulators, and a significant part of the strategy will be devoted to these processes. This corresponds to what we are already seeing in Western markets, where in developed countries more than half of the IT costs are spent on joint projects with regulators, said Martin Pilecki. It is important for Alfa-Bank to foresee this in advance, to react quickly, so that such projects are effective and mutually beneficial for the bank, he says.

Another area covered by the IT strategy is the development of multi-channel. For customer service, it is required that the same information go through different channels: that it be at the call center, at the client department, at management and in branches.

2015: Main Projects of the Year

Alfa-Bank's Annual Report 2015 highlighted the key work done in the field of information technology both for internal activities and in terms of customer services.

Infrastructure and Organizational Projects

The bank notes that in 2015 the IT unit achieved high results in ensuring the continuous availability of banking services for customers. System development planning was carried out within the framework of the Alfa 3.0 strategy: this means that when developing new applications and updating current ones, the bank paid great attention to the feedback received from customers.

The IT Risk Management Committee was established as a subsidiary of the Operational Risk Committee. As part of minimizing IT risks, the bank identified the most likely of them, and also developed and launched into widespread use a methodology for assessing potential losses from failures.

Separately, the annual report notes the development of functional interaction between the IT unit and the bank's business blocks. This helped to increase the business focus of IT processes and improve the methodology for managing IT projects, which received significant attention in 2015. In particular, the IT project management methodology was integrated with the general bank methodology of the corporate project office, which made it possible to standardize project documentation and reporting, as well as improve project monitoring.

An important event in 2015 at Alfa-Bank is the implementation of the SAP HCM system for the main HR and payroll processes.

The work was carried out in the direction of reducing paper circulation. The Bank launched an internal electronic document management system, which made it possible to minimize the work with paper documents. Alfa-Bank notes that if earlier all work with incoming correspondence was carried out manually, now all data of this type are in a single system, which itself makes reminders about the timing of their consideration.

According to the bank, the system made it possible to increase the speed of coordination of organizational and administrative documents by 15% and reduce the labor costs of the office by 25%.

Another important technological innovation in 2015 in the bank is the use of Alfa-Office technology to provide scanned copies of documents for opening an account and exchanging information with partners and potential customers. Now, instead of traveling to a bank branch, a client or partner can scan documents himself using a special application that is installed on a smartphone, and they immediately get checked by back-office employees.

Within the framework of the BPM system of PEGA in 2015, the process of opening accounts for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs was automated with the generation of a package of documents for signing, and the technology of using the electronic signature of a bank employee was introduced with the subsequent automatic placement of documents in an electronic archive.

In 2016, the bank completes the implementation of the IT strategy for 2014-2016. Alfa-Bank's annual report states that the bank will form its "new ambitious" strategy for 2017-2019. It will pay particular attention to the further use of the Agile culture and the active integration of advanced project development and implementation technologies (DevOps) into the IT unit.

Remote maintenance

In 2015, the total number of customers using the Internet bank [[Alfa-Click crossed the line of 4.5 million people, and the number of companies receiving payments exceeded 14,000. The number of users of Alfa-Mobile Mobile Bank exceeds a million people, and almost 15% of all Alfa-Bank customers use this remote channel.

Alfa-Bank notes that the development of remote channels is one of its strategic priorities. In 2015, a lot of work was carried out in this direction, primarily related to the expansion of the possibilities of remote service of SMB companies. Among the projects carried out last year, the report notes a serious update of the functionality of the Alfa Business Online Internet bank and the integration of a fully functional foreign exchange control service into it. It allows several times to reduce the period of currency control for customers and completely exclude paper document flow when it passes, they say in the bank.

Now the Internet bank has the entire chain of banking services for foreign economic activity: currency control, real-time conversion, settlements with foreign counterparties and customs payments, including using customs cards.

Alfa-Bank also introduced cryptography and USB keys for authorizing and signing electronic documents in Alfa-Business Online. Previously, only users of the traditional Alfa-Client Online system had such an opportunity.

Also in 2015, the target architecture of remote banking services was piloted: "This project is especially important for the bank, since the possibility of increasing the client base depends on it, regardless of the presence of a banking branch in a particular city, Alfa-Bank notes.

We see the further development of work with SMB companies not only in increasing the client base in the cities of presence, but also in using the accumulated experience in the field of IT to develop a model of remote customer service, which allows you to start working even where there are no bank branches. The implementation of the model will begin in 2016, which potentially opens up more than 2 million new customers for the bank, the annual report says.

In 2015, the application of the Alfa-Mobile mobile bank was updated more than once, and its functionality was expanded. For example, it became possible to open current and accumulative accounts in rubles and in foreign currency, as well as enter a mobile bank by fingerprint. In addition, a detailed description of the location of Alfa-Bank ATMs has appeared in the mobile bank. Another important new function of the application in the bank is the addition of an online chat with Alfa-Bank employees to Alfa-Mobile, available on any day of the week and at any time of the day.

The functionality of the mobile bank has also been replenished with the Lightning service, which allows you to pay electronic accounts issued from partner sites or applications through a USSD message. Alfa-Bank says that such a service was implemented for the first time in the world and represents a synergy between the two technology platforms. One of them is the e-invoicing service, which allows bank customers to bill online to pay for orders on the websites of more than 50 thousand online stores. The second is the USSD data exchange channel, which allows you to confirm payment in dialog mode, as well as select an invoice for debiting.

In addition, Alfa-Bank has implemented support for Apple's new product, the Apple Watch, in its mobile bank. The company says that they did it first among Russian banks.

2013: IT budget $200 million

Alfa-Bank's IT budget in 2013 is almost $200 million, Martin Piletsky told CNews CIO Alfa-Bank (September 2013).

Costs related to IT are within 8% of the bank's total costs. According to Pilecki, this is the optimal indicator with so-called. world banking practice.

"The IT budget consists of two large parts: the operating part, support for already implemented systems, is now somewhere around 55% of the total, and we direct about 45% to development, research and development, respectively," says CIO "Alfa-Bank."

The main projects to which these funds are directed, Pilecki calls the implementation of Basel standards (international recommendations regarding the quality of risk management - note CNews) and SAP.

"We analyze the structure of capital, optimize the concluded transactions, improve intra-bank operational processes, move from formal to meaningful risk control," says Pilecki about the Basel project. - A detailed methodology for calculating and controlling more than 10 types of risks is being developed, taking into account the specifics of the portfolio of our bank. A lot depends on the IT implementation of the developed methodology. Therefore, the project is of primary importance. "

As for SAP, the bank decided to implement this software for human resources and financial divisions: "We are starting to implement SAP to calculate the salaries of our employees. We are also starting projects for budgeting and planning general economic activities. "

Until now (September 2013), the bank has used Scala and Metarex: Salary and Personnel Management software to solve these problems. The need to change Pilecki explains the increase in the number of employees in the bank, and the project is estimated at 2-3 years. Until the contractor is selected, a tender is underway, which should be completed in the near future^[10].

2011: Technology Development

According to the Bank's data for the fourth quarter of 2011, in the reporting period, a host-to-host connection was launched between the processes of Alfa-Bank and UCS (the "United Credit Card Company"). The bank routes authorizations from the terminal network to UCS processing and performs the functions of a settlement bank. Alfa-Bank and Master Bank ATM networks were also merged. The combined ATM network has more than 3 thousand ATMs in 250 cities and settlements of Russia. Earlier, Alfa-Bank merged its ATM network with Promsvyazbank and MDM Bank.

In the reporting period, the Bank also continued to develop its Alfa-Click Internet banking system. In particular, the integration of Alfa-Click with the electronic payment system Деньги@Mail.ru was implemented, and a new system for monitoring operations at Alfa-Click was also put into trial operation. In addition, the P2P translation service has become available to Internet bank users directly in their personal account.

At the same time, Alfa-Bank expanded the functionality of the P2R transfer system through the bank's website. Now bank customers can make transfers between cards of various payment systems. For example, you can transfer funds from a Visa card to a MasterCard/Maestro card.

In the fourth quarter of the past year, a new version of Alfa-Mobile was released for/ iPhone, Android which presents such new features and options as the status of the ATM, Alfa-Queue, ATM Partners on the Card, and Fast Phone Payment. The industrial operation of the Alfa-Mobile version for the BlackBerry platform has also started.

In the reporting quarter, Alfa-Bank launched the Alfa-Mobile application in its subsidiary bank in Kazakhstan.

The bank also began issuing dual cards of the Visa payment system (Visa PayWave). Dual cards combine the functionality of ordinary chip cards, but additionally support contactless payment technology (one-touch payment), Alfa-Bank explained.

Alfa-Bank Russia IT Projects Base

{{# ITProj: Alfa-Bank Russia}}

Alfa-Bank Kazakhstan IT projects base

{{# ITProj: Alfa-Bank Kazakhstan}}

IT projects base in Alfa-Bank Belarus

{{# ITProj: Alfa-Bank Belarus}}

IT projects base in Sens-Bank (formerly Alfa-Bank Ukraine)

{{# ITProj: Sens-Bank (formerly Alfa-Bank Ukraine)}}

Notes