Capgemini seeing BFSI's IT spend gaining traction, says CEO Anirban Bose

Anirban Bose, chief executive officer (CEO) of Capgemini’s financial services and group executive board member has said the company’s financial services group saw huge traction as banks and financial institutions increased their spends significantly in 2021.

Going ahead, he believes that for many, the focus will be on reprioritisng their IT spends.

The banking, finance services and insurance (BFSI) sector has been the biggest adopter of tech and the pandemic was no different. For BFSI, Bose believes that IT spends for 2022 are only going to go up, and customers are reprioritising their IT budgets.

“Investments will continue, but it will get a lot more prioritised. Clients will relook at their systems and see what is it that is bringing simplification, or what are the solutions that are creating better customer experience or bringing cost effectiveness. The priority list is going to be crucial,” he added.

Bose also said that reprioratisation will come in two-three different areas. First, it will be focussed on data; protecting and monetising data will be key. There will be a lot more spend on that. Second will be collaboration on scale, not only with employees, but with different partners as well. And, third will be how you can make the customer experience a lot more at par to other industries. So, these are these three things that will continue to evolve.

“Customers have a trove of data but how they can actually use that to create more efficiency, the right cost transformation and right personalisation is the key. Our world payments report also mentions that today about 70 per cent of customers are looking for a lot more personalisation, loyalty and rewards from their bank whereas 20 per cent of banks are ready for that,” added Bose.

For the Paris-headquartered IT services major, financial services contribution to revenue was 22 per cent at the end of the third quarter of CY2021 (Capgemini follows the calendar year as financial year).

Financial services grew 5.4 per cent on a constant currency basis. One of the impacts of this growth was that India benefited from it. “You no longer have to evangelise about work that can be done from anywhere. People were living in that reality. Previously, you needed to have the right solution, the right talent, at the right time, and at the right place. Now, the place factor is debatable,” he said. 

Capgemini had a total headcount of 309,300 at the end of the September quarter, with its India figure being 150,000. This, according to Bose, makes it the fourth largest employer in the Indian IT services sector.

Bose reiterated that when clients accepted and saw the benefits of working from anywhere, the question then asked was why do we need teams so close to the client? 

In India, Capgemini works with some private and semi-government banks. It is more focused on getting services where it has expertise in things like modernisation, cloud adoption and card payments, among others. 

Bose added that the Indian banking sector is going through a  transition that many in the US and other geographies went through a decade ago.