Ibercaja and Microsoft enter their third phase

Some Spanish banks have created joint ventures with their technology infrastructure provider; others have preferred to go digital by stretching their internal resources.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
09 November 2022 Wednesday 19:42
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Ibercaja and Microsoft enter their third phase

Some Spanish banks have created joint ventures with their technology infrastructure provider; others have preferred to go digital by stretching their internal resources. Due to its size and characteristics, Ibercaja opted at the end of 2015 for a strategic plan that the following year led it to sign an agreement with Microsoft that has been satisfactory for both parties, summarizes Leandro Hermida, director of Information Technology of the Aragonese bank.

“First and foremost, we've gained front-row access not just to the Microsoft products we're using, but to engineering and innovation ideas, something that vendors are often very jealous of and that, in our view, is generating a competitive advantage. In addition, we have jointly addressed issues of cultural transformation, such as training our employees in the adoption and use of tools through a collaborative model that has changed many things in our day-to-day life”.

Ibercaja, as is known, stems from a non-traumatic merger between savings banks whose business model was a very traditional distribution of financial products through a network of branches with little geographical dispersion. In this context, the need arose for a strategic plan, which is currently in its third phase. “The first stone of our digital transformation –says Hermida– sought to radically modify the customer relationship model. We decided to start with mobile banking, which we felt was the best way to separate the transformation from the internal noise that occurs in any organization undergoing drastic changes.”

The goal was much more ambitious, hence the phased approach. The third still has a year left. Since 2016, the digital activity of Ibercaja customers has almost doubled and more than 50% of transactions originate digitally. Six out of ten customers use digital banking.

The support provided by Microsoft “has a far-reaching impact. We have seen it in the consolidation of capacities, gaining quality of service, but our main focus has been the transformation of operations: how an omnichannel relationship with customers evolves, what is the current role of the branch and what is that of the distribution network on-line. The model is ours, but Microsoft brings its collaboration tools to those interactions; with the advantage for us of being equal to larger banks in other countries”, says the technology director.

After six years of collaboration and another to come, Ibercaja has already begun to think about the content of the fourth phase. Hermida only advances that one of its central elements will be the exploitation of knowledge based on data analysis. Of course, the technological infrastructure is not the same as in 2015. The platform that manages customer relations uses Microsoft technology, for now based on local servers, but moving towards the cloud with the incorporation of SaaS (software as a service).

Banking misgivings about migrating to the cloud is a classic and recurring discussion. In Hermida's opinion, this decision cannot be merely technological, but concerns the reform of the operating model. “It is true that solutions in cloud mode promote internal flexibility and agility, but they do not have to be done in a public cloud, it can be in a private cloud. Right now, we don't see existing public clouds as a universally valid answer, unless you're a new bank building from scratch. And the cloud is not as cheap as it is said.