Cedar on Banking Technology

In the face of rising geopolitical risks, banking technology is experiencing unprecedented pressure. In this CedarView Podcast episode, we unlock how banks must adjust their technology strategies to maintain operations and mitigate new risks, including cyber threats & supply chain disruptions. We cover practical strategies for resilience, such as strengthening business continuity plans and sec...

Payment hubs represent a major shift in banking, transforming payments from a utility-driven cost center into an innovation-led profit engine. They enable a coordinated, standardized operating model across retail, corporate, treasury and cross-border payments, driven by globalization, rapid technology advances and rising regulatory demands. By consolidating fragmented systems into an integrated fr...

As personal and corporate lives increasingly move online, cyber risk has overtaken physical risk as a major threat. Cyber attacks can damage identities, operations and reputations at unprecedented speed and scale. While security patches address known vulnerabilities, attackers often stay ahead, making it impossible to eliminate all risks. As a result, cyber security insurance is emerging as a crit...

Corporate payments are rapidly evolving as modern technology platforms enable near–real-time processing, greater transparency, and stronger compliance. As payment services become a major revenue and retention driver, banks must invest heavily in corporate payment capabilities to stay relevant and counter fintech competition. While retail payments have advanced faster, corporate payments are catchi...

The concept of “Success Transfer,” pioneered by Citi, goes beyond knowledge sharing to include full implementation of proven business models across geographies. Originating in Citi’s global credit card operations, it involves replicating successful products, platforms, brands, personnel or operating models from mature markets to growth markets, adapting them to local needs rather than reinventing...

Banks are increasingly embracing digitization to improve efficiency, attract customers, enhance analytics and deliver personalized services. Smaller, agile banks often lead this shift, viewing digitization as a way to grow market share rather than just automate transactions. Digital banking goes beyond mobile or online channels—it represents a customer-centric philosophy that delivers consistent,...

Global IT spending is massive and growing, making technology a critical source of competitive advantage. Yet around 60% of IT projects fail to meet objectives or timelines, often due to weak business ownership. Successful IT initiatives require strong alignment between business and technology. Ownership must start at the top, with senior business leaders co-owning projects alongside IT heads. Proj...

Banks select vendors based on required detail and time available, leading to four common approaches: traditional RFI–RFP, proof of concept, market leader selection and strategic partnerships. While traditional and PoC methods offer deeper evaluation, they take longer; market leader and partner models are faster but rely on confidence in the vendor. The RFP remains central, focusing on the bank’s o...

Banking technology priorities have shifted markedly over the past decade. CIOs and CTOs have moved focus from core and back-office overhauls to service-oriented architecture, outsourcing and digital transformation. Today’s architecture is shaped by digital, cloud, mobility, analytics and big data, impacting channels, middleware, analytics, payments and core systems. Customer experience now dominat...

Technology outsourcing, business process outsourcing (BPO) and shared services are entering a new growth phase driven by factors beyond cost arbitrage. As technology adoption accelerates and skill requirements diversify, organizations increasingly rely on best-in-class vendors rather than building all capabilities in-house. While BPO suits large-scale operations, shared services help organizations...

Banks setting up Islamic banking operations must carefully choose technology and infrastructure to meet Shariah, regulatory and customer requirements. Islamic businesses typically require separate divisions, Shariah boards, compliant products and often separate general ledgers. Banks can either invest in a single universal banking system (UBS) supporting both conventional and Islamic products, or...

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional banking through lockdowns, cash-handling risks, supply-chain stress and rising NPAs, impacting bank profitability. Amid this crisis, a “digital panacea” has emerged, accelerating the shift toward fully digital banking models. Beyond business continuity, banks have an opportunity to permanently transform by embracing three priorities: driving digital...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping banking across front, middle and back offices, replacing routine roles while creating new technology-driven jobs. AI enables tasks such as speech recognition, cognitive analytics and machine learning, allowing systems to learn from data and improve decisions without human intervention. In the front office, AI-powered chatbots, voice assistants and analy...

Many large IT investments fail to deliver expected value due to poor alignment, weak execution, or incomplete planning. Successful IT investments can be guided by three fundamental questions: why, what, and how. The “why” focuses on clearly defining the business objective—identifying the specific problems being addressed and the tangible benefits expected, such as efficiency gains, cost reduction,...

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), with billions of connected devices, is creating major opportunities and challenges for banks. IoT enables devices to exchange data autonomously, generating vast data sets that can be used to predict behavior, anticipate needs, and design new financial solutions. For banks, key applications include automated payments, personalized offers, smarter SM...

The growth of data and analytical capabilities has shifted businesses from intuition-based decisions to data-driven decision making. Analytics transforms raw data into actionable insights that help organizations understand past performance, identify causes, predict future outcomes, and recommend optimal actions. It is defined as the scientific process of examining data using tools and techniques t...

To become the wealth manager of choice for millennials, firms must embrace seamless digital onboarding. Millennials expect fully digital, self-service onboarding that consolidates lead generation, customer analytics, need assessment, product recommendation, and account opening into a single experience. Traditional relationship-led models are no longer sufficient, especially as significant wealth t...

Over 60% of technology transformation projects miss budgets or timelines, making execution excellence and a strong Program Management Office (PMO) critical. Successful program management enables early benefit realization, an institutionalized framework, and organizational engagement. Five key tenets drive success. First, robust governance with visible executive sponsorship, clear roles, KPIs, RACI...

Banks have shifted from viewing IT as a support function to recognizing it as the foundation of their business, a change accelerated by digital disruption and the pandemic. A bank’s digital and IT capabilities now define what it can offer customers, making periodic, top-down IT strategy reviews essential. Instead of isolated fixes, banks must adopt a holistic approach aligned with business vision,...

Large technology transformations like core banking programs often fail when readiness is judged only on system or application status. To enable effective milestone decisions, Cedar recommends the RAPID framework which is a holistic readiness assessment tool based on experience from 40+ core banking implementations. RAPID evaluates five critical dimensions: Resources, Application, Process, Infrastr...

Robo-advisors are becoming a permanent feature of wealth management, driven by millennials and the mass-affluent seeking affordable, transparent investment advice. With global AUM projected at $100 trillion and robo-advisory expected to capture about 5%, the opportunity is significant. Millennials alone are set to inherit nearly $30 trillion over the next decade. Robo-advisors use self-learning al...

The global financial services sector is undergoing rapid technological and competitive change, putting pressure on margins and increasing regulatory focus on operational resilience. Since 2016, regulators worldwide have emphasized risks linked to cloud adoption, data privacy, cybersecurity, climate risk and growing reliance on third-party providers. While outsourcing can reduce firm-level risk, co...

AI is transforming unsecured lending, with rapid market growth driven by instant credit scoring, faster underwriting, and improved customer experience. Traditional loan processes that took weeks are being replaced by AI-based risk assessment models that enable same-day or even instant lending decisions. Banks such as Santander and Scotiabank use AI engines like Kabbage to assess creditworthiness q...

CIOs and CTOs are prioritizing the ability to turn enterprise data into actionable insights, as fragmented, siloed systems have limited effective decision-making for years. Many organizations suffer from inconsistent data, weak analytics, duplicated MIS efforts, and data integrity risks due to poor data design. Advances in storage and processing have renewed interest in data warehouses (DWHs), but...

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly central to predictive and behavioral analytics, especially in risk management and compliance within financial institutions. By analyzing large volumes of financial and non-financial data, AI improves risk identification, measurement, and mitigation. It enables early warning and learning systems in lending, governance, cybersecurity, AML, and fraud prevention...