CASE STUDY

Republic Bank (Barbados) Limited

Tansforming business to reinforce market dominance

Profile
Founded as Barbados Savings Bank in Bridgetown in 1852, Barbados National Bank was re-branded as Republic Bank
(Barbados) Limited in 2012. The banks portfolio includes personal banking services, such as mortgages, different types of
savings accounts, term deposits, telephone banking, credit cards, personal checking accounts, money gram services, travelers
checks and drafts, bank statements, ATM banking, and interest bearing checking accounts. Corporate services from the Bank
include commercial mortgages, corporate current accounts, merchant services, micro loan plans, and payroll services.
In addition, the Bank also offers foreign currency accounts, letters of credit, SWIFT money transfers, and investment
banking services
Since its origin in 1978, the Republic Bank (Barbados) has been an integral thread in the fabric of Barbados financial, social and
cultural landscape. As one of the longest serving financial institutions in Barbados, the Bank has contributed to the nations
development through its commitment to the people and the businesses it serves, with the governments support. The Banks
long history has been one of leadership and achievement, and it now stands fully geared for future growth.

Overview
In 2007, Republic Bank (Barbados)
embarked upon a major strategic initiative
designed to transform the business to
better serve the needs of its customers.
The Bank recognized the need to replace

hoped to reinforce its reputation as a

infrastructure would support the Bank in

provider of quality service in the highly

meeting high SLA and customer service

competitive Caribbean market.

standards.

Key factors for selecting

Finacle

Finacle would enable the Bank to get an

integrated and unified 360 degree view
of the customer relationship spanning

its existing legacy platform, which

The Bank considered a number of

demographics, relationship value,

had become increasingly expensive

core banking technology vendors

transaction history and service requests.

to maintain, with a best-in-class core

before shortlisting Finacle. It evaluated

This was important for the Bank to improve

banking solution that would automate

these vendors through a series of

its understanding of customers and

most processes and also improve business

demonstrations, functional walkthroughs,

identify opportunities to enhance service,

agility. After considering parameters like

functionality mapping and technology

business and profitability. The core and

architecture and scalability, the Bank

reviews.

treasury solutions are pre-integrated in

the Finacle suite, thus enabling easier

decided to go with the Finacle suite

consisting of core banking, CRM, treasury

The robust architecture, flexibility in

online updates between them for currency

and e-banking solutions.

parameterization, scalability and ability

evaluation.

to provide a unified customer view made

Finacle a perfect fit for Republic Bank

Key business drivers

(Barbados).

The Bank required a solution that would

bring about a comprehensive technology
transformation of its operations across
treasury, CRM, e-banking and end-to-end
core banking. The Bank wanted to provide
a great experience to its customers,
for which it required a unified view of
customer relationships. By doing so it

Flexibility in parameterization provided

by Finacle would enable the Bank to
innovate and provide a differentiated value

Other key selection criteria

Successful deployment cases at various

banks across the globe

Alignment of out-of-the-box features

with requirements

proposition to its customers. Finacle would

Demonstrated ability to execute

also give the Bank the ability to specify

large-scale projects with a considerable

parameters and undertake modifications

professional services component

at account level. The strong referral

Strategic commitment to core banking

and other banking solutions

Transformation methodology

Project management phases

The project implementation involved the

following phases: requirements gathering,
Validation

Acceptance

Design & Build

Launch

user education training, parameterization,

application configuration, system

Project Initiation

integration testing, user acceptance

Training

Functional, Technical &

Process Assessment
+
Solution Architecture

Parameterization
Application
Based Process
Reengineering
Design &
Development

System
Integration &
User
Acceptance

Simulation

led a strong project management team

ably supported by experts from India and

Go Live
End User
Training

User
Acquaintance

testing, simulation run and go live. Infosys

onsite throughout. Infosys testing services

were employed to carry out the user

Stabilization

acceptance testing.

Infrastructure Readiness
Program Management / Change Management / Value Realization

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External Document 2015 Infosys Limited

Key implementation
highlights

System deployment architecture

The Bank and the Infosys team addressed

many challenges during various phases
of the project. The program was handled
as a global delivery model with teams
operating onsite and at various sites in
India. A governance structure comprising
of key stakeholders ensured successful
go live of core, CRM and treasury solutions
within 22 months. The following are the
highlights:
Strong hands-on leadership driving
requirements definition, selection,
implementation and vendor
management
Strong IT business alignment with
common leadership across IT
and operations
Extensive early stage training and gap
analysis and additional training
conducted throughout the program

Extracting data from the existing

legacy system and mapping it
with Finacle was tricky and was
handled with due diligence
and complete coordination between
different teams

Some specific bank requirements

in clearing, cash denomination and
report generation were addressed
through minimal customizations

A number of devices, such as card and

check readers, receipt printers etc. were
seamlessly integrated with Finacle
A joint testing team comprising experts
from Infosys and the Banks business
team was formed
Change management was very well
executed and Finacle champions were
identified for every branch

Business benefits
The transformation has already started to
pay off at the business and operational level.
Thanks to Finacles scalability, the

3 | Infosys

Banks capacity to serve customers and

accounts has increased
The Bank is also able to create more
products through parameterization
Finacles modular architecture allows
the Bank to easily connect to other
solutions (like Finacle Treasury)
The Bank can now enhance operations
by adding more delivery channels
or opening branches with less
maintenance activity
Agile and better-controlled operations
with a flexible global security facility
driven by maker-checker concepts.
The increased supervisory control has
enabled the Bank to achieve proficient
and efficient delivery of service.
The referral framework has helped the
Bank to meet high SLA standards and
provide better customer service
Handling multicurrency transactions is
now much easier
The ability to see a 360-degree view of
each customer has enabled the branch

teller to render single window service

and bring down wait time
Automation of process steps for
origination of loan, term deposit, savings
and checking accounts through CRM
Installation of card and check readers
to enable customers carry out cashless
transactions
Finacle enabled the Bank to collect
various service charges like duplicate
statement charges, and charges for
other bank ATMs etc.
In 2012, the Bank decided to merge the
subsidiary BMFC (Barbados Mortgage
Finance Corporation) with Republic
Bank (Barbados) Limited and made it a
separate branch. This was carried out
seamlessly with Finacle.
Elimination of the usage of Excel sheets for
mutual funds. Introduction of the mutual
funds module in Finacle helped the Bank
switch from a manual to online system.
More flexibility in modifying business
functionality

External Document 2015 Infosys Limited

Operational benefits

origination , CIF, 360-degree view of

device on teller window) and

customer, issue check book and stop

receipt printer

Easy process for uploading rates

Many steps were automated,

into the core banking and

intervention, drastically reducing processing

including EI calculation, DSR, eligibility

treasury solutions

time and error. This has improved staff

calculation, deviation, credit filter,

productivity and shortened the turn

credit scan and backend account

Return On Investment (ROI)

around time for new account opening, and

opening

The Bank has seen an increase in profit

on account of accumulation of charges and

Finacles extensive service oriented

check

architecture enhanced straight through

processing and reduced manual

completion of service requests.

Finacle lends itself to automation of

The End of Day (EOD) processing has

many tasks, such as the printing of

been simplified with many processes

managers checks and generation of

being run as batch jobs

SWIFT messages, to greatly reduce

already started to payoff.

Consolidated salary processing time

manual effort/intervention.

There is a 50% increase in the number

has reduced with extensive

Integration with devices (card and

of accounts opened since going live in Oct

customization, which helps

check readers) to minimize manual

the Bank to process salaries for other

entry in the system

reduction in the operating cost, facilitated

by the new system. The investment has

2009. The biggest reason for this is that the

Bank is now able to extend much-needed

Ian De Souza, Chief Executive Officer, Republic Bank (Barbados) Limited, When we were in the process of evaluating banking systems,

we found that Finacle was best-in-class. Testing showed that the system was robust, efficient, reliable and state-of-the-art. Our experience
with the Infosys team during implementation was absolutely wonderful, and we received excellent support from them as well.

banks and institutions and hence earn

The cash denomination feature enables

offerings and services to its clients.

more income

the Bank to move cash easily from the

The clearing process is now simpler

head teller to other tellers or between

due to the introduction of

tellers and helps them validate the cash

automated clearing

in hand and the transactions occurring

Lockers which were maintained in Excel

on the system at the end of every

sheets are successfully uploaded on

business day

Finacle with VAT and other charges

Limits management - sanction limits

thereby improving the agility of

being levied

and drawing power are easily managed

customer services.

Rules and access rights have reduced

in the new system, and supported by

operational risk

menus for quick review

Process Improvement Review (PIR) services

Republic Bank (Barbados) has

Implementation of voucher-less

several processes and change them to

implemented all the CRM modules like

transactions by integrating with

achieve business benefits.

sales and marketing, accounts and loan

Intellipin (PIN selection and verification

With the recent successful completion

of performance tuning, the Bank has
witnessed an improvement in the
performance of the system and CRM
application, and has cut down he time
of End of Day (EOD) operations by 50%,

provided by Infosys helped the Bank revisit

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