TCS banking on universal banking platform to clinch large finance deals

TCS has announced several deals this year, led by BaNCS, in Europe, the Asia-Pacific and West Asia

With information technology (IT) services companies seeing subdued demand from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment, industry leader Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) says it is expecting its universal banking platform, BaNCS, to clinch large deals in this space. 

Last week, the Mumbai-based major announced it had a multi-year IT outsourcing contract from Scotland-based Phoenix Group; the industry estimate is $2 billion. Phoenix is Europe’s largest life insurance and pensions consolidator.

This is the second such large deal the company has signed in BFSI which involves large-scale deployment of its BaNCS solutions; the Transamerica contract last year is said to be of similar size. The latter deal marked TCS’ entry into a specialised insurance third-party administration marketplace in the US,  establishing BaNCS in the region.  

“The expanded partnership (with Phoenix) will result in the digital transformation of Standard Life’s pensions and savings operations onto the TCS BFSI digital Platform, powered by TCS BaNCS. This will expand the overall scope by a further 4.2 million policies, taking the total number of policies managed by Diligenta, TCS’ regulated subsidiary in the UK, to nearly 10 million,” said Suresh Muthuswami, president of BFSI Platforms at TCS.

In the ongoing year, TCS has announced several other deals which are led by BaNCS, in Europe, the Asia-Pacific and West Asia. “Despite headwinds in the BFSI vertical, TCS has indicated that the BaNCS platform is doing fairly well and has been able to achieve six new wins and six go-lives in Q2 (September quarter),” says Girish Pai, research head at online share market trader Nirmal Bang. 

TCS already services around 35 million policies globally through the platform business. The new mandate from Phoenix will make it 40 million. “This will cement our market leadership in the life and pension insurance segment, with a strong presence in open book deals," added Muthuswami. 

TCS presently services around 7.5 million open book policies, which offer higher profitability than closed book ones. To further the platform business and make inroads in markets outside of Europe, it is now looking at localising the product for other markets, especially for America. 

“The banking platform in the UK is doing well and is highly mature. We are now in a position to on-board 750,000 to a million policies every quarter, which is giving us steady growth and non-linearity,” says N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer.  

According to industry analysts, TCS' investments around products and platforms, as well as its aggressive patenting, will be a key differentiator. At end-September, it owned 1,121 patents and had applied for 4,874 more.