In India debating the future of banking operations

I was recently invited to speak on a panel on the future of operations communications at an event in Bangalore. Embarrassingly, this was my first trip to India and I was struck by how sophisticated the banking infrastructure has become since the early days of outsourcing. As I said to our host, it is of note that delegates were journeying East to a banking conference rather than West.

Communications in financial services has become a hot topic. During the panel discussion, held under Chatham House rules, we talked about the pain points hindering effective communication in operations. It was a vibrant session and the audience of senior operations managers was fully engaged.

It is clear that the current means of communicating leave much to be desired, with email, phone, and fax still dominant. Most start-ups are focused on the front office or pre-trade. There isn’t any other FinTech we know of focused on post-trade – a critical area due to the increasingly operational burden of regulation, pressure on costs and the need to deliver more value to clients and shareholders.

Despite the inefficiency of current channels, I’ve been impressed at how effectively firms manage exception-based processes within their own organisations.  However, these processes fall apart when another party becomes involved – which is the case in most financial transactions.  Once interactions go beyond an individual firm, complexity increases as each counterparty will have their own processes and channels. A definition of operations hell might be “other banks’ web portals”.

After years of working in banking, this problem made a lasting impact on me, and this is why I established Taskize.  Our objective is to solve exception management across firms and bring all parties up to the level of sophistication that larger firms enjoy today.  We want to enable all back offices to operate at a world-class level, whether big or small.  Our vision is to improve problem handling beyond recognition.

Millions of transactions are processed each day. A small but significant percentage of them fail, requiring human intervention.  Some issues are easy to solve, but when another party is needed to assist in resolving an issue, the fun and games begin. Anyone working in operations will tell you that trying to find the right person in another organisation is a frustrating and time-consuming process.

Taskize is here to help. Taskize connects operations people, wherever they may be, to resolve problems quickly and seamlessly.  Our solution focuses on finding a person in the right role rather than named individuals. Even better, it learns the roles people have, so you don’t have to tell us.

Effective communications should not stop at the door of your own firm. The time has come for financial services operations to resolve queries and issues faster and more efficiently. To do this, they need to choose the right tool for the job – one that is built specifically for the back office, is compatible with their own processes, and super easy to implement and use.

John O’Hara
CEO and Co-Founder Taskize