Interview of TAdviser with the managing partner of Neoflex company Oleg Baranov

Oleg Baranov: Yes and no. The Russian banking system is heterogeneous in essence therefore the credit institutions relating to different segments differently pass test by crisis. Most hard it is necessary not the largest banks — we can state it on the basis of decrease in their activity in the field of automation. The largest banks, well, say, from TOP-20 continue to move forward actively on the way of technology development, and in the separate directions even more intensively, than in more safe times. In this context the most striking example – Sberbank which continues to implement ambitious IT projects announces creation of essentially new information systems and expands staff of IT specialists.

Oleg Baranov: In a situation when the market is regularly left by small banks, large players try to attract new clients, including – by participation in sanitation. Sanitation, in fact, – a form of absorption and accession of other bank by large bank, and his clients and portfolios respectively. On this direction IT budgets increase as it is necessary to solve problems of unification of IT infrastructure of the attached bank, its inclusions in the general IT landscape. Besides, the banks growing in crisis conditions continue to be engaged in development, upgrade information systems. General impression from a situation: large banks aim to save on small and not most significant projects, on support of the working IT systems long ago, but quite actively invest in development, in new opportunities for attraction and customer retention. As for banks of the first and second hundred rating, except for the largest, they also invest in some directions of development of IT infrastructure. These banks set the task not to lag behind market leaders or to reduce a gap if it is.

One more traditional direction for investments in IT who wants to be noted is the reporting before Bank of Russia and observance of requirements of different state departments and bodies. The activity of our state on the regulatory direction only increases, and, respectively, requires the increasing attention from banks.

Oleg Baranov: In a product line of Neoflex there is own, working in many banks system for automation of formation of the regulatory reporting of Neoflex Reporting. It allows to create all types of the reporting according to requirements of the Bank of Russia. The new functionality appears almost constantly as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation regularly publishes new instructions, letters and instructions according to which banks or should provide the reporting under a new form, or rules of preparation of the current reporting change – new fields are added or clean up, the structure changes. In our company the special service which on a regular basis monitors all changes of the banking legislation works, and including – emergence of new acts of the Bank of Russia. Respectively, changes are made to the software product, clients are informed on how new instructions will change their work taking into account specifics of specific bank and also the used functionality of Neoflex Reporting.

Oleg Baranov: Not only. The banks working with Neoflex Reporting receive this service by default, but there is an opportunity to purchase this service and separately. I will note that in addition to increase in functionality, in connection with a release of new instructions, we constantly are engaged in development of a core and basic mechanisms of a system.

Oleg Baranov: Traditionally we use two architecture. The transaction systems are written based on Java EE. Analytical products which also Neoflex Reporting treats are created generally using Oracle DBMS, standard ETL tools (Informatica, IBM DataStage) and an e-business intelligence (SAP Business Object, IBM Cognos and some other).

However, recently, all of us more attention give Open Source to platforms. If to speak about traditional technologies, then it PostgreSQL DBMS, ESB Jboss Fuse, BPM the JBPM platform, CRM the Suite CRM system and many others.

If to speak about platforms for processing of Big Data, then it is Hadoop, Spark, Storm, etc.

Oleg Baranov: We for a long time master and we apply technologies which can be carried to Big Data today in our projects. The reason of it that, in many cases, traditional tools for work with data, such as relational DBMS, ETL, BI or ESB means, cannot provide accomplishment of some business challenges, or the solution requires very expensive program and hardware. Usually such problem arises if there is a lot of data and/or they are required to be processed very quickly. I will give several examples. Now we execute the project of creation of the situational center for large domestic agroholding. The task consists in in real time to provide monitoring and response to emergency situations, for example, outage of technology. Using Big Data technologies we trace event streams from different sensors and we provide informing, and automatic response to emergency situations in real time. Other example – online marketing, response to a certain client event, for example, card transaction, and creation of the offer in real time. Besides, all of us face the tasks connected with acceleration of an overload of large volumes of data between information systems, for example when loading in storage more often. Use of new technologies allows us to reach acceleration in 10 and more times.

I want to tell that we not only program on Big Data-платформах, we also create own tools and different components allowing to accelerate and make more effective development process. And by the way already today these means help to reduce many times us time and cost of Big Data-проектов.

Oleg Baranov: The DIA owing to specifics of activity received several hundred core banking system of the Russian banks which stopped work in different years in the order. One of routine tasks of DIA – obtaining information on the specific client, for example, the statement on all accounts which can be open in several banks.

It was necessary to look for information earlier in each core banking system where the client had accounts, separately. In a project deliverable, specialists of Neoflex created a system which provides the unified access to the core banking system of any bank and any vendor from one window. For this purpose it was required to create special adapters for each ABS type (R-Style, Diasoft, Inversion, CFT, etc.). As for the choice of the bus Oracle SOA Suite, as far as I remember, it was the requirement of the customer for which this platform – the corporate standard.

Oleg Baranov: We are engaged in automation of retail lending long ago, the special solution Neoflex FrontOffice working in many banks is created. The first in volume of the processed credit requests the project was implemented in the Renaissance Credit bank specializing in crediting in sales points (so-called pos-crediting). During "a high season" the number of daily processed credit requests reaches several tens of thousands (the set record - about 90 thousand). The standard for the answer of the credit pipeline in the conditions of peak loads – 2 minutes.

Oleg Baranov: Yes, the specialized module of the American company FICO is responsible for decision-making on the credit (we are her partner in Russia). And usually our credit pipeline is implemented together with the module FICO Origination Manager Decision Module. The pipeline is responsible for all business process on acceptance of the request, data collection, and the risks assessment module – actually for adoption of the credit solution. One more project on creation of the credit pipeline was recently implemented in Touch Bank, child structure of OTP bank. And the third example – the project in RN Bank (captive bank of the Renault Nissan group) for automation of issue of car loans. I will note that during creation of the credit pipeline, practically always we execute integration with all information systems of bank with which it is necessary to organize interaction during processing of the credit request.

Oleg Baranov: These are more than ten specialized software modules for interaction with the ministries and departments (FTS, FMS, FSSP and some other government institutions). By means of these adapters banks according to the current legislation respond to the requests of state agencies, provide information on a regular basis. During similar projects, as we know, connection to SIEI (System of Interdepartmental Electronic Interaction) is implemented. There are also, other channels, for example the channel of the Central Bank. From new in this sphere – since July 1 all Russian banks will be obliged to deliver information on payments for housing and public utilities. Respectively, we already prepared and put on the market the new adapter "GIS of Housing and Public Utilities" which is for banks in the increased demand.

Oleg Baranov: VTB 24 - the client, very significant for us, and the project which started in 2012, - extremely interesting and difficult. The bank then set the ambitious task of cardinal updating of IT infrastructure, including – to implementation of a number of information systems. The Neoflex company was selected for implementation of the integration platform using which were connected 16 large and a quantity of less significant information systems of VTB 24 bank.

The turned-out construction received in bank the name the universal layer of bank services (ULBS), and the total number of the integration services implemented during operating time on the project - more than one thousand. USBS is in a stage of commercial operation, we perform technical support of this bank of IT solution, critical for work. The main objectives of the company at this stage are connected with operation of an integration bus, providing required speeds, reliability, availability of services. However each three months the bank releases release which contains new functionality of different ICs of bank. And we should finish, develop USBS, implementing additional services. The most difficult task in this case – to implement new functionality so that it did not influence work of information systems of bank.

Oleg Baranov: USBS is implemented based on the industrial integration Oracle SOA Suite platform.

Oleg Baranov: We it is dense and permanent interaction with IT specialists of VTB 24. In case of incidents, quickly we communicate, understand whose area of responsibility a problem, together solve as it to remove. In fact, we work as one command. Monitoring of functioning of USBS is performed remotely by our administrators in mode 24x7 by means of specialized software tools.

Oleg Baranov: I hope that so long partnership is caused, first of all, by our good work and reputation. In Renaissance Credit bank several projects were implemented. At first – integration based on the IBM Web Sphere platform, then creation of the powerful credit pipeline using IBM BPM was performed. From rather recent projects – implementation of Neoflex Reporting for automation of providing the reporting in the Bank of Russia. Also the bank uses our line of Neoflex Adapters for interaction with state. bodies.

Oleg Baranov: It was quite difficult year which forced us to rethink a lot of things including the modes of work with our customers and what products and solutions we have in the portfolio on what we are focused. Even earlier, in 2014 we began to notice that some traditional approaches, became suddenly worse to work. We did the same, and achieved results much more modest. It would be too simple to explain it only with a crisis situation in the market. During the whole year we regularly conducted brain storms, discussing a situation, developing new approaches which could bring to customers that value which they expect from us in the changed conditions. And I think that we managed it.

Oleg Baranov: There are no plans for withdrawal from a bank segment, of course. We will work further with banks, and is very active. So, since the beginning of last year we began to invest in absolutely new software products which meet the requirements of our bank customers of perspective. But at the same time really there are plans for adding in a portfolio of the company of clients from the new industries, in particular – representatives of the sphere of retail, the logistic companies, agricultural enterprises. Model of customer interaction in the new markets – to offer them in what we became the best in the bank industry.