Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2015-5 (Vol. 66, No. 3)

Special Issue: Financial System Solutions

Channel Innovation

• Realizing New ATM Service Using Palm Vein Authentication Technology

Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank and Fujitsu conducted a joint project to develop an ATM service based on the palm vein authentication technology "Palm Secure," one of the biometric authentication technologies developed by Fujitsu. ATM services based on biometric authentication exist, but they require an IC-enabled card for transactions. This new service allows transactions to be conducted without account books or bank cards, and instead utilizes biometric information stored on servers. In other words, this ATM accepts users' palms in place of their bank cards. The palm authentication ATM service operates on the basis of three main systems: palm authentication system, Web-ATM system and core banking system. Fujitsu engaged in developing the palm authentication system as the main component of the service. The requirements to be met were a swift authentication response, avoidance of illegal transactions, and establishment of security measures, as the technology was to be applied to ATMs which handle cash as well as the ultimate personal data—biometric information. We successfully addressed these challenges by making arrangements with regards to retrieval keys, encryption of biometric data, and separation of the biometric data from personal information that could identify individuals. This paper outlines the palm authentication ATM service, and describes the system characteristics and future development.

• Case Study of Reforming Front Office Work at Bank Branches based on Channel Integration Infrastructure System

Fujitsu offers a Channel Integrated System to reform front office work at bank branches, leveraging Business Process Management (BPM) and the Business Rule Management System (BRMS). This system offers to streamline the often complex front office administration by means of an interface that navigates users through various tasks required for the front office work while it comprehensively obtains the necessary data from the core system, customer relationship management (CRM) system, seal management system and other related systems, subsequently relaying, modifying and merging the data along the way. The window framework adapts the Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) mashup for improved user experience, enhanced job processing efficiency and elimination of errors. Furthermore, the navigation structure is developed by referring to the administrative processes and work logic definitions, as opposed to having application-centric development. This ensures flexibility to be able to adapt to process changes that may occur due to, for example, legislation amendments or service/product alterations, without necessitating reprogramming. This paper describes the functional layout, effectiveness and future extension of the channel integration infrastructure system, drawing on the case of Shizuoka Bank.

• Next-Generation Channel Solution for Financial Institutions

Information and communications technology (ICT) is rapidly expanding its scope of application. For example, smart devices, progressive technology related to big data and so on are becoming more and more prevalent. Leveraging the latest technology, new ICT solutions are being offered one after another, not only in the consumer market but also in business sectors. Financial institutions have so far focused on optimizing ICT functionality dedicated to a single sales channel. However, there is an increasing need for a wider application of ICT across various channels to achieve comprehensive optimization and ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and customer values throughout the available channels. Fujitsu offers Financial Business Components with eXtended functionalities (FBC-eX), a channel solution built around Fujitsu's branch-based core banking system, which has many financial institutions as users. The main concept of FBC-eX is to constantly expand the solution coverage on the basis of the latest market trends and customer needs. Fujitsu's efforts continue to develop the next-generation channel solution that accounts for the latest technology trends and customer needs, aspiring to create new customer values. This paper describes the efforts to bring about this next-generation channel solution.

Solutions as a Service

• Construction of Large-Scale, Private Cloud Computing System for Japan Finance Corporation

The Japan Finance Corporation is a policy-based, government-affiliated financial institution, inaugurated through the integration of three corporations. One of the challenges in this integration is the enhancement of the operating/maintenance system for higher functionality. As a solution to be offered, we have constructed a large-scale, private cloud computing system, selecting de facto middleware on the basis of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to unify operation management software. By replacing the independent systems operated and managed on a unit-basis with a virtual system that was developed within the private cloud system, the business units were relieved of the burden of system operation and they could concentrate on their business applications. It also succeeded in improving the service provision and strengthening IT governance. In this paper, we will describe the project in terms of the purpose of constructing a virtual, private cloud system, together with some points we learned from this project. These include the key factors in preparing the cloud base and innovative ideas for managing the project, which stretched over 23 months, taking about 2000 man-months in total. This paper then gives some notes on conducting stress tests. We also present a case of trouble-free live virtual server migration, which was executed in response to the resource shortage that occurred during actual operation.

• Project to Transfer Mission-critical System of Banks to Private Cloud

In post-2011-earthquake Japan, there is a heightened awareness of the need to be able to maintain business operations amid the havoc caused by natural disasters. Like many other businesses, financial institutions are reviewing their investment distributions, and business continuity planning (BCP) is no longer exempt from such considerations. One of the challenges financial institutions are faced with is to reduce cost while keeping their mission-critical systems infallible so as to sustain social infrastructure. Fujitsu has successfully accomplished this challenge by developing a cloud-based service, leveraging its virtualization technology, cluster software and Database Management System (DBMS). While virtualization makes it possible to economize on hardware and software costs, it also allows operators to promptly detect failures and swiftly redirect operations by means of an error-detection mechanism that is linked with server-based hardware. Furthermore, customers benefit from the possibility of leveling out the cost as Fujitsu provides the virtualization platform as a service-based solution. This paper describes a project to build up a virtualization platform for a major banking corporation.

• Project to Transform Business Systems into Services for Regional Financial Institutions

In recent years, regional financial institutions have been opting to lose their own business systems and, instead, use the umbrella company's group-wide system or vendor business services in order to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). Fujitsu has so far been working to transform core system into services, while efforts for auxiliary systems have been lagging behind due to the fact that it is often more cost-effective to build such systems on the premises rather than employing business services. However, the expanding wide-area high-speed networks and advancing virtualization technology in recent years are providing more opportunities to replace auxiliary systems with services without incurring high costs. We at Fujitsu also pursue the development of services that enable our customers to reduce their TCO when operating their businesses. This paper describes the initiative to develop the international core banking service, which was launched in 2014 as a foreign exchange transaction service for regional financial institutions.

Big Data/Data Mining

• Project on Efficiency Enhancement for Banking System Development through High-speed Batch Processing Solution

IT systems, being an indispensable tool for business management today, are expected to deliver the performance that meets the demands for processing an increasing volume of data and providing a timely service. At the same time, reducing the ever-increasing cost in operating the system is also important. FUJITSU Software Interstage Data Effector is a data-processing tool that can quickly handle voluminous flat file data, and it is capable of sorting, combining and aggregating CSV/XML data simply and fast. Leveraging Fujitsu's unique technology, the project aims to enhance efficiency through developing an application program capable of high-speed data processing and definition base inscription. Expected results include the downsized application development project and reduction of batch job numbers as well as the processing time. We have reviewed these advantages and, in addition, some points concerning the adoption for actual use. Furthermore, as a measure to attain better efficiency, we have developed a definition generation tool and development standards through our business negotiations about banking information systems. We have thus established a high-speed batch processing solution that enables application development to be more efficient. This paper describes the enhanced solution for batch processing using the Data Effector, and the results obtained with it.

• Effective Transfer of Business Intelligence Tools for Leveraging Big Data

Evident by the fact that the term "big data" has entered people's general vocabulary, utilizing the vast amount of data accumulated by business enterprises today plays a crucial role in allowing people to make prompt business decisions and improving corporate values. Against this background, use of business intelligence (BI) tools becomes increasingly significant for accumulating, analyzing and evaluating the voluminous data. Required functionalities are more and more sophisticated, and we expect that there will be a greater demand for transferring existing BI tools to the latest, fast and high-performance models. Therefore, Fujitsu has tackled the challenge of enhancing BI tool user experience and expanding the scope of business tasks, and successfully completed a project of BI tool transfer, from the client-server type Business Objects by SAP to the latest Web-based Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. In doing so, we have had to address the task of overcoming the tool incompatibility by innovatively modifying the processes, systems and outputs. In this paper, we explain the challenges inherent in this project and their resolutions.

• Enhancing Administrative Procedures of Financial Institutions by Using High-speed, Flexible Search Engine to Deal with Large Volume of Data

Many financial institutions today are actively seeking ways to derive knowledge from the large amounts of data they accumulate through daily operations. However, the diversity in the data forms they handle has been an obstacle that makes it difficult to store and manage such data in one place and make them available with easy access. This is because the conventional relational database (RDB) would require a long time to realize such a system, and would incur a large cost. Fujitsu has developed various business support systems, two of which are FUJITSU Software Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager (DM), which is a high-speed XML database engine with a simple design and operability, and FUJITSU Software Interstage Data Effector (DE), a high-speed data processor that allows for fast and easy CSV/XML data sorting, merging and aggregation. Combining these two technologies will solve the challenge that could not be solved by the RDB-based system, and it even potentially makes it possible to leverage the data that have been unused so far for conducting analyses. This paper describes the case of administrative work enhancement at one financial institution, where the DM and DE are leveraged to enable long-term storage (10 years) of a large volume of data and a fast, unrestricted search engine. It also discusses the future possibilities for data utilization.

New Technologies and Development Methods

• New Methods of Developing Smart Device Applications for Banking Systems

Today in banking businesses, enterprises are placing the emphasis on differentiating themselves from their competitors through sales activities. Similarly, sales work in the retail section is required to have unique features. Against this background, tablet-based retailing tools are entering the mainstream, partly owing to the recent improvement made to smart devices that can handle business requirements. Banking corporations are reconsidering their information and communications technology (ICT) investments, which have so far focused on the core banking systems, to engage in the development of smart device applications in order to strengthen their retail sales. The development of core banking systems, which has been the main task of application development for many banks, tends to be a long-term project due to the need to ensure high product quality. Yet they also expect faster development for smart device applications. However, from the viewpoint that financial institutions constitute social infrastructure, they require the quality standard at the level of core-system development to be applied to the development of smart device applications. In this paper, we discuss the factors that prolong the development of core systems, and describe new methods of developing applications for smart devices for banking systems that deliver both fast development and high product quality.

• Application of Agile Development to Develop Core Business Applications for Finance and Insurance Industry

Agile software development is gaining recognition as a method for developing software with flexible specifications in a short period of time, against the increasing factors of uncertainties, as the market and user needs are prone to rapid changes. In Japan, the method is widely adopted in the development of intra networks and Web-based systems, but there have been very few cases in terms of developing core business systems. Fujitsu pursued a joint development project with its user client, Tokio Marine & Nichido Systems as a few forays into the application of agile development of core business systems for the finance and insurance industry. We reviewed characteristic features of the core system development, set ourselves challenges in adopting the agile development, and prepared the project framework as well as the budget/development plans. We also implemented a developmental process with an aim to change developers' awareness. This paper describes the case of core business system development.

• Realization of Ideal Insurance Sales by Utilizing User Experience Design

There is an increasing demand from the insurance industry for a change in work style that can be achieved by introducing smart devices which utilize information and communications technology (ICT) to deal with sales activities and administrative procedures. Introduction of smart devices will help to reduce the lead time to conclusion of sales and enhance the handling of a range of processes from consulting to product suggestion, policy application and policy maintenance. It is often the case, however, that the systems that have been developed while focusing on business efficiency and cost reduction do not offer sales agents sufficient features to use when dealing with customers. Where this is the case, smart devices are underused, and fewer agents are willing to carry the devices with them. In order to address this point, it is crucial that a system is designed by taking into consideration the customers' points of view as well as agents' working styles. This paper introduces an approach to system development based on a design that considers the user's experience, delineating two perspectives of the ideal styles, namely of the agents and headquarters management. The approach is described in terms of the utilization of smart devices for insurance sales, and its aim is to formulate directions to head in with various measures and define their concepts.

• Global Expansion of Financial Infrastructure Service Based on Reverse-Innovation Strategy

In a joint effort between the government and private sector, Japan is just starting to export the infrastructure systems that underscore the daily activities of Japanese society. While Fujitsu has been successful in the field of providing business support for Japanese firms that export infrastructure systems, it has struggled in terms of dealing directly with foreign governments and businesses for infrastructure exports. In order to overcome this, Fujitsu has abandoned the glocalization strategy and adopted a brand new marketing strategy based on reverse-innovation, with FUJITSU Financial Services Solution RAPORTADO as its strategic product, and the product made it to the ASEAN markets. The reverse-innovation strategy addresses many of the challenges inherent in exporting infrastructure service. In this paper, we explain the advantages that the reverse-innovation strategy offers for infrastructure service exports based on the actual instance of bringing RAPORTADO to the global market.

Consulting

• Support for Reforming Work Style at Financial Institutions Using Tablets

In recent years, many financial institutions in Japan have been making changes to their work arrangements leveraging smart devices such as tablets. It is often the case where the tablet-based work style is fully implemented that such changes are aimed at improving the productivity of client relations personnel (agents). For example, the agents can access client data while being on the road, and use electronic materials to explain their products, thereby reducing the time needed for preparations and minimizing the time lost by repeating visits. The agents can use the time saved in this way for other sales activities. However, introducing tablets does not guarantee an instant, expected result. It is important to have round-table discussions, involving all concerned parties including the actual system users, to carefully consider the purpose of introducing the tablets and how they will change the work arrangements. It is also necessary to consider what is required to make the system "enduring." This paper describes a consulting service offered by Fujitsu Research Institute to help financial institutions consider these issues.