Cedar Podcasts

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...

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...

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 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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Post-2008 regulations, evolving markets, and new technologies have fundamentally reshaped treasury functions. Heightened focus on liquidity, capital, and risk driven by Basel norms has made liquidity costlier and elevated the treasurer’s role from cash management to a strategic driver of balance-sheet growth, risk control, and regulatory compliance. Treasury processes now emphasise integrated plat...

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...

Core banking transformation is often compared to changing an aircraft engine mid-flight, as banks must replace their core systems without disrupting live operations or customer experience. Successful implementation depends on disciplined execution across multiple critical phases. The journey begins with rigorous programme planning, defining activities, dependencies, milestones, ownership, timeline...

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 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...

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...

Islamic finance has gained global attention for its risk-sharing, ethical principles, especially after recent financial crises. Islamic banking operates through pure Islamic banks, Islamic subsidiaries of conventional banks, and Islamic windows. While GCC Islamic banks once outpaced conventional peers, growth has slowed due to volatile oil prices and weaker regional economies, with market share la...

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,...

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...

Recent large-scale frauds linked to SWIFT transactions highlight hidden operational vulnerabilities in banks and the urgent need for stronger risk controls. SWIFT is a global messaging platform used by banks to facilitate cross-border payments, with transactions executed either through straight-through processing (STP) from core systems or via manual postings on SWIFT terminals. While STP reduces...

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...

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...

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...

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...

SMEs are vital to the global economy but remain underserved in bank lending due to the unique nature of their credit risk. Unlike large corporates, SME risk is primarily promoter-driven, making traditional corporate credit frameworks ineffective. SME lending requires a volume-led, specialized risk model that assesses the obligor rather than just the facility, blending borrower behavior, cash flows...