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VirtusaPolaris: Transforming the Way We Bank through AI & Deep Machine Learning

Sujith Vasudevan
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Sujith Vasudevan
When Sandra Patrick entered her bank, she was greeted by a whole new experience. Instead of her usual routine of waiting in a queue to meet the teller, she now was able to quickly access a self-service terminal powered by an artificial intelligence (AI) robot that could assist her with her banking needs. Sandra wanted to transfer money to a friend and the AI robot quickly helped her find the correct resources and helped her get it done in a jiffy. The next day, Sandra texted her bank’s Chabot to check her spending on retail stores. The bot texted back telling her that she had spent $216.99 this month on retail stores and after asking a few more questions about her shopping needs, the Chabot was able to recommend to Sandra a specific set of shopping patterns and discount stores to use that would help her save some money. If you think that this is a scene out of a Sci-Fi Hollywood movie like Star Trek, then let me tell you that this is no movie. You are probably still experiencing old school banking services if you are not greeted by a robot at your bank. Massachusetts-based VirtusaPolaris, an IT Consulting, Outsourcing and Agile Software Development Company, is helping banks digitally transform their business operations and deliver compelling consumer banking experiences.

“When you think of large BFSI organizations, the traditional service providers to the sector have been performing the business process outsourcing (BPO) work with them. We are advising these banks and helping them get this work done through automation and robotics. And that is why the whole AI and deep machine learning becomes important. Software robots that can learn the work done by human operator today can significantly improve speed of service delivery reduce errors and deliver a better experience to banking customers. With deep machine learning, the robot is learning to become better at what it does over a period of time,” says Samir Dhir, President -– BFSI, VirtusaPolaris. The company helps you understand how to deploy robotics in a meaningful way and to automate manual processes effectively to improve operational effectiveness. Whether it is automation, robotics or IT simplification, VirtusaPolaris has built solutions for banks around these services, including regional specific requirements that are mandated by the local regulators.

Delivering business value a notch higher

Feeding on the mantra of ‘mess for less’, traditional outsourcing providers had been growing for years by delivering low-end services built on a cost-arbitrage model. Using a consultative approach, and differentiated approaches like software platforming, VirtusaPolaris delivers innovative solutions to its clients that accelerate business outcomes, thus providing greater business value compared to its peers. The company works closely with the business, IT and strategy teams within client banks to understand their business challenges. Using this insight and its skills in software engineering, coupled with deep domain expertise and an optimized global development model, VirtusaPolaris builds targeted solutions that allow banks to accelerate time to market, improve customer experience, increase operating efficiencies, and lower total cost of ownership of IT operations. Samir adds, “One of the key reasons we have grown faster than our industry peers is our approach to the market which has been different”.

Today, the emergence of a millennial population of consumers with very demanding requirements of how, when and where they want to access products & services has created new challenges for banks in supporting their customer needs. However, new developments in areas like digital, mobility, analytics and big data now allow banks to deliver highly differentiated solutions to cater to this new demand. In essence, what this means is that the traditional banks now have to digitally transform their business to remain competitive, or just get left behind. In response to this market challenge, banks are spending huge amounts of money on innovation. According to the 8th annual innovation report by the Retail Banking Group, banks are spending 74 per cent of their IT budget innovation in 2016, compared to the 37 per cent they spent on innovation in 2009. VirtusaPolaris has built a Digital Transformation Framework that allows banks to assess the digital readiness of their business, identify specific functional areas for transformation, create a model of the future state and develop the appropriate technology solutions to help them get there. Digitally transforming the business is not just about building a clever front-end user interface for a mobile phone or a tablet, it is about ensuring that the front-end consumer experience is “useful, usable, and desirable”, and transforming the back-end IT systems to be able to handle the additional business requirements created by these new products and services. It is about making sure that the bank’s end-to-end IT systems are simplified and re-platformed to handle digital business requirements, are providing the business with the agility and nimbleness to stay competitive in aggressive market conditions, and are capable of delivering distinctive millennial consumer experiences. “For years, we have been focused on building platform for the consumers, and building the new-gen technology,” adds Samir.


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