A Multi-channel System Architecture for Banking

Financial institutions have increased dependence upon the technology solutions that enable their financial products and services. The proliferation of Internet technologies, mobile devices, and competition from international commerce have placed increased pressure up banking and financial institutions to ensure that competitive leadership is maintained. A key challenge facing banking and finance is how to adopt the new Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) within the organization in a timely manner whilst not disrupting the embedded solutions that provide core banking capabilities to operate the business. In this paper we propose a multi-channel architecture for financial institutions such as banking. The architecture is based upon our industry experience in developing multi-channel solutions in similar industries and is refined further here based upon our experiences in banking. The proposed architecture may be used to facilitate decisions on how best to deploy new and emerging multi-channel technologies within the banking environment, providing a means for assessing how to ensure effective use of existing investments in systems and technologies. The solution may be used as a blueprint for banking institutions in developing their multi-channel strategies; addressing the incumbent, emerging, and future channels of banking distribution.