Financial services organizations weather continued pressure to meet customer demands for new and faster services and comply with the growing burden of regulation. They also need to consistently maintain their profitability amidst increasing operating cost compared with the competition.

The structure of the financial services market continues to evolve, bringing new business opportunities, while competition, customer pressures, regulation and technology threaten profit margins, revenue and business profile.

The combination of these factors drives the need to streamline, integrate and optimize complex systems and processes to achieve economies of scale and specialization. Shareholders and executives need to see the benefits of mergers and acquisitions on the bottom line quickly, making it essential that companies reduce costs and deliver new services to their customers ahead of the competition.

Alongside the challenges posed by these market dynamics is a growing requirement to satisfy industry regulators. This drives financial services companies to continual improvements in their capacity to manage risk and liquidity, underpinned by sound capital ratios and a growing need for enhanced reporting and price and service transparency. Regulation increases overheads significantly and requires effective and efficient data capture, manipulation and management. Coupled with this is the need to comply with directives to combat money laundering often linked to internal fraud prevention strategies.