Leader Par Exemplar

In the digital age, universal core banking systems have completely transformed. So much so that whatever once was physical, today, is digital. And in the post-pandemic era, this core is again transforming to accommodate the virtual realm.

However, it is a very herculean task to seamlessly change your core banking systems into time-responsive digital and virtual processes that will integrate the entire banking channels, domains, departments, and services.

And all this while continuously running your existing banking solutions, offering all your core to non-core banking and financial services to all your customers, and stakeholders and showing performance to your shareholders.

This is where the bank needs trustworthy changemakers who will not only shoulder the responsibility with ease but aid you through the entire process with anything and everything required to successfully accomplish the transition as smoothly as possible.

And that is why, Thomas Waltair, the Regional Head and Head of Product Engineering at Neptune Software Group, India is making all the difference by bringing credentials of the highest degree to the fore and continuously delivering mission-critical universal core banking systems solutions with elan.

The Man on the Mission Critical

Neptune Software, founded in 1999 in London, has a rich history of delivering mission-critical Universal Core Banking Systems to the banking, financial and microfinance services sector.

Thomas shares, “Having delivered end-to-end solutions to over 100 financial service institutions over these many years, we have the proven experience needed to empower our clients with high-performance and scalable solutions that are deployed quickly and reliably. We have been working in this industry for the last 23 Years.”

As the first employee of Neptune India, Thomas has meticulously formed a team of young, vibrant, and dynamic people who know their craft well. The task of building a team from the scratch is difficult, but Thomas has performed exceedingly well in leading the team from difficult to positive times.

Thomas directly oversees universal core banking product engineering, global product support, presales and post-implementation support and branding. He has handled all requests across the continent to build Gartner-listed universal core banking products ‘Rubikon and Orbit-R’. He brings in over 18 years of experience in product technology stack engineering.

Thomas is amiable and easily approachable, who puts employee satisfaction at the forefront that makes his ward do all the wonders for a successful business. He believes in a flat hierarchy and that’s how it works in Neptune India.

Visible track record within the organization and Thomas has been instrumental in the growth of the company in all key parameters for the past 18 years. i.e., from the first implementation to 100+ banks and financial institutions

Modular Based Core Banking Solutions

Neptune’s USPs are,

• Rubikon is constructed with Java Enterprise Edition, a Modular based core banking system.
• Rubikon comes with Embedded Oracle Enterprise database license as a back-end, Oracle WebLogic application server license as part of ISV agreement with Oracle, UK. Also offering includes the Embedded report engine the of Jasper server. That means the client is not required to spend any investment for Oracle License OR report-related software.
• Integrated HRMS including payroll process, Trade Finance, Treasury, Fixed assets, Credit score analysis, Banking Intelligence, Inventory and Purchase Order.
• Role-Based single Sign-On; One can play multiple roles; in a multi-Currency system.
• Rubikon system is a real-time and double entry system; So all transactions reflect immediately into GL.

Powering Your Bank’s Digital Transformation

Built on Java modern architecture, Neptune’s Rubikon Universal Core Banking Solution offers a wide-ranging suite of abilities to power your banks’ digital transformation.

With Rubikon Core Banking Solution, your bank will gain a comprehensive set of competencies, including flexible and global level product definition, Highly Parameterized solutions on Interest, Charges and Taxes and reusable business components, and comprehensive product bundling to help accelerate innovation-led growth. Using it you will have the ability to create and launch products on demand.

With its real-time transaction posting engine, exposed to open APIs, Neptune’s Rubikon delivers one of the most next generations FinTech banking frameworks to engage the demands of consumer-style banking.

Massively Parallel Distributed Data Architecture

Being an experienced leader, sharing his opinion on how the adoption of modern technologies like AI and ML is impacting the BFSI space and how is Neptune adapting to the change, Thomas says, “As an international core banking market leader, we also heavily invested in the following areas.”

• Customer Churn,
• ATM Usage Forecasting,
• Credit Risk Modelling on providing the Probability of Default,
• Anomaly Detection in Customers Usage pattern,
• Algorithmic Search of Customers within the Core Banking System,
• Reducing the False Positives on Sanction List Scanner in AML with Integrated Smart Filtering,
• Enabling the Real-time Smart Filtering in Fund Transfer to validate the Sanctions Database built internally,
• Implementing the IFRS9 and calculating the Expected Credit Loss

“All these deal with a plethora of data, we managed to use Hybrid RDBMS Technology – MariaDB which acts as a Transactional and Data warehouse system with the in-built column store engine columnar storage engine that utilizes a massively parallel distributed data architecture to retrieve the data faster and can be utilized as HDFS Systems using Spark SQL,” adds Thomas.

Exciting Time’s Innumerable Opportunities

According to Thomas, open banking through APIs is full of exciting potential for every bank. In today’s banking world, your core system should be positioned to take advantage of those possibilities, because the competition certainly is. You can’t afford to be left behind.

As a niche player in the CBS market, Neptune comes with Deploy technology strategically – “In recent years we delivered digital account opening, remote lending platform, mobile app, and CRM as our priority deliverables.” Reveals Thomas.

Thomas adds, “Nearly 200+ microservices APIs are exposed to the outside world via our Channel Integrator for any kind of customer banking as a service.”

• Cloud-ready CBS deployment.
• Truly 24×7 Real-time Processing.

Thomas’s Law of Success

Thomas’s advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the BFSI space is unique. He says that every prominent company with its success is touching greater heights was only a start-up at one point. You can explore different opportunities to succeed in achieving your desired goals. Moreover, Keeping the working processes and deliverables simple always makes it easy to stay engaged.

Keep your primary focus on delighting your customers. Just like a famous theory by Sir Isaac Newton states, ‘for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction,’ every action you take now has its repercussions later.

The greatest leaders achieved success because they had a vision. Leverage the knowledge and skills of the people around you to grow your business. not every idea that crosses the conference room table is a great one. However, sometimes less-favourable ideas can lead to better ones.

Neptune’s Future Course of Expansion

Speaking about envisioning scaling Neptune’s operations and offerings in 2022 and beyond, Thomas reveals, “We aim to scale Neptune Software’s further operations by expanding our footprint globally, especially in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Asia Pacific region.

We aim to work with a primary objective to provide quality services to our clients, especially in regions where people face language barriers.”

Finally, Thomas concludes, “Comprehending all the challenges we aim to deploy our software so, eventually, we can showcase our company as a trustworthy organization that is synonymous with quality and reliability.”