JFS chooses IBM analytics, cloud and mobile capabilities

BANGALORE, INDIA: IBM has entered into a six year agreement with Janalakshmi Financial Services (JFS), a leading India-based micro finance provider, to transform its business and technology capabilities.

Utilizing IBM's business consulting expertise combined with its Big Data and analytics, cloud and mobile capabilities, the company will strive to expand on its plans and vision to deliver affordable financial services to individuals and enterprises across India.

JFS provides innovative solutions for the urban under-banked and for the untapped nano and micro enterprise segment in India. According to industry estimates, 40 percent of India's population is currently lacking access to formal banking and financial services, resulting in financial inclusion serving as a key government policy imperative for the country.

JFS has an aggressive expansion plan to increase its footprint from 154 branches and 3 million accounts to 1,400 branches serving over 20 million accounts by 2020. The company was looking for a partner who could support a scalable and viable business solution.

IBM will provide JFS with an end-to-end technology platform along with mobile and analytics based solutions which will gather and harness customer information as well as digitize and automate the organization's processes. IBM will strengthen the existing JFS payment platform based on these same insights, which will enable them to create and offer an ongoing set of new payment products for its customers.

In addition, IBM will use advanced analytics capabilities that integrate JFS's geo-spatial insights with credit-decisions process to help improve distribution and collection models. IBM cloud solutions will also help the company's underlying infrastructure to support multiple deployment options and ensure fully integrated service management

JFS will also use a ‘Biometric Dedupe' solution from IBM Research to enhance the speed of deduplication of fingerprints while onboarding new customers. The core technology platform has been developed from IBM's experience and learning with leading telecom players in India.

"Over the last few years, JFS has made rapid strides to drive financial inclusion for India's urban unbanked population. As we continue to expand, we need a strategic partner like IBM with proven domain experience in the financial sector. IBM's established credentials in successfully driving organizational transformations both globally and in India were key to our decision to work together. Ramesh Ramanathan, chairman, Jana Group.

"IBM came up with an innovative commercial model that will provide a direct connection between business performance and IT costs, while enabling us to scale operations and build an agile technology environment."

The solution also includes IBM MobileFirst portfolio to support JFS's sales force to conduct door-to-door marketing and customer service activities. In addition, JFS will use IBM FlieNet Content Manager to help meet the growing challenge of managing enterprise content with greater speed, efficiency and accuracy, and IBM OpenPages software will be used to manage risk and compliance initiatives across the enterprise.

"We are pleased to join JFS in its journey to help drive financial inclusion across India, empowering citizens with access to financial services that improve financial stability and quality of life. By leveraging leading Big Data, analytics, cloud and mobility solutions, JFS will be able to use the power of technology to differentiate and drive profitability, which is critical to its expansion and growth." Vanitha Narayanan, MD, IBM India.

"Through this engagement we will help JFS make critical strides in achieving business transformation, improving service delivery and increasing customer satisfaction.