Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) embarked on a refresh of its enterprise architecture strategy with a goal of rationalizing applications and to reduce operational cost and improve time-to-market. The industry specificity and comprehensive definitions offered by the BIAN framework (Banking Industry Architecture Network) meant it was the obvious choice for delivering tangible value to the bank’s initiative and SAP LeanIX Enterprise Architecture platform was the chosen solution to consolidate this process. 

As the largest Portuguese bank, CGD plays a central role in Portugal’s financial system, offering a wide range of banking services. CGD had an extensive estate spanning over 700 applications in its legacy systems. Leveraging Link Consulting specialist skills as BIAN subject matter experts, as well as SAP LeanIX implementation expertise, the team continues to conduct a thorough mapping exercise of application names, descriptions, and functionalities.

This is leading to a clear roadmap for change which reduces both costs and operational risks by identifying duplicated functionality and migrating workflows to a more streamlined and integrated architecture. This has been made possible through the use of the BIAN Service Domain model, which provides the canvas against which all applications can be mapped and classified in a transparent and collaborative way.

Following a successful, on time and on budget first tranche of mapping, CGD is now planning a broader second phase, using a BIAN-driven methodology and SAP LeanIX capabilities, to cover API specifications as well as applications.

According to Paulo Pereira,  Architecture Director at Caixa Geral de Depósitos, “Tackling a project of this scope, in tranches that make sense for the business’s goals, might not have been possible without the underlying understanding provided by the BIAN Service Domain model and SAP LeanIX platform.”

Know more about our expertise in financial services and get in touch if you also want to elevate your business with state-of-the-art architectures and tools.

In the past decade, digital banking has evolved from a supplementary service to a fundamental component of the financial industry. This transformation is driven by the proliferation of FinTech companies; the rise of innovative products such as crypto-assets (cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based assets), ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds), and PEPPs (Pan-European Personal Pension Products), and the exponentially increasing number of digital users worldwide. Despite these advancements, many banks still grapple with manual processes, operational inefficiencies, and the need to adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations, which can hinder their ability to compete effectively.

According to our 20+ years of experience in this sector, here are the most common challenges that we have been helping to face:

• Customer expectations: Today’s customers demand seamless, 24/7 access to banking services, personalized experiences, and the ability to manage their finances from any device.
• Regulatory compliance: The financial sector is heavily regulated, and maintaining compliance with evolving regulations such as PSD2, AML, and GDPR usually requires significant resources and expertise.
• Cybersecurity threats: As digital banking services expand, so does the risk of cyber-attacks. Ensuring robust security measures to protect customer data and financial transactions is paramount.
• Operational complexity: Traditional banks often struggle with the operational complexity of integrating new digital solutions with legacy systems. This complexity can lead to increased costs and slower time-to-market for new services (ultimately leading to customers lost to digital-first competitors).

Embracing next-gen Digital Banking technology

Technology sits at the heart of overcoming these challenges. It enables banks to streamline operations, reduce cost-to-income, enhance customer experience, and maintain a competitive edge. The integration of state-of-the-art solutions in banking not only drives efficiency but also meets the growing demand for instant, seamless, and secure financial services. Customers today value:

• Convenience: Easy access and use of banking services.
• Speed: Fast processing of transactions and services.
• Security: Robust measures to protect their financial and personal information.
• Innovation: Cutting-edge products and services that meet their evolving needs.

If not yet, this is the perfect time to meet Link’s Bank on Box: a multi-channel, self-service and no-code digital banking platform designed to address the demands of modern financial institutions and their individual/business customers – empowering them with the tools needed to thrive in the global and always-connected era. This plug-in solution is very fast to implement and allows to open an account, make all usual banking operations, order and manage financial products with just a few clicks. Key benefits include:

• Global availability: Operates 24/7 on a global scale, providing continuous access to banking services.
• Security and compliance: Fully secure and compliant with industry standards, ensuring customer data protection.
• Integration: Easily integrates with most common back-office systems for banks and investment service providers.
• User-friendly: Designed for ease of use and management, facilitating a smooth and intuitive user experience.

Best value for money: Grow your customer base and foster new sales at low-cost.

Bank on Box v4: Features and innovations

Now on its v4, Bank on Box continues to push the boundaries of digital banking with new and extended features, making it a frontrunner in the industry.

• • Next-Gen user experience: Bank on Box v4 offers a mobile-first, multi-language platform with features like face and fingerprint authentication, remote product selling with Video ID and Live ID, hybrid mobile and web responsiveness, and extensive personalization options.
  • Digital onboarding: The platform provides a seamless digital onboarding process (a journey that can be rapidly configured in backoffice according to each institution compliance requirements and with specific Anti Money Laundering validation procedures), including biometric identification through liveness or videoconference, advanced OCR, and digital signature capabilities.
  • Security module for MFA: With configurable Multi-Factor Authentication, Bank on Box v4 enhances security for financial transactions. It supports various authentication methods, including SMS OTP, email OTP, and biometric authentication.
  • Investments marketplace: This feature allows financial institutions to offer a curated mix of internal and third-party investment products (that can be automatically synchronized through an API), targeting mid to high-income customer segments, with detailed info for subscription, secure bidirectional channel to exchange messages, analytics, insights and recommendations.
  • PSD2 Open Banking compliance: Bank on Box v4 is fully compliant with PSD2 regulations, offering secure third-party provider management, client consent management, and robust monitoring and reporting capabilities.
  • Flexible and customizable: The platform supports extensive out-of-the-box features for retail banking, investment products, and corporate banking. It allows for personalized look and feel in a white label solution, flexible menu organization, and customization of messages.

Real-world impact: Proven success

With 1M+ users (individual and corporate) from 90+ countries (Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia), 30M+ operations and 5M+ logins last year, Bank on Box is a proven digital banking platform with 18+ financial institutions across Europe and Africa already live. Its agile deployment, customization, and integration capabilities ensure that you can quickly gain new, global revenue streams and easily adapt to market changes. Our strong commitment in product maintenance and innovation guarantees that you will always be ahead of the curve and with a top-notch support service.

According to Jorge Raminhos, Head of IT at Bison Bank, “For a bank such as we are, the focus in digital channels is crucial, and we must be agile and fast about offering new products and services to our clients. We chose Bank on Box because of its range of out-of-the-box features, its hybrid App and its ‘zero-code’ configuration capabilities, which allowed us to have the solution operational and adapted to our needs very fast. And we chose Link because of their open-minded attitude, technical competence, business know-how and flexibility, which ensures the agility we need.”

The future of digital banking lies in leveraging technology to overcome operational complexities, meet regulatory requirements, and exceed customer expectations. Bank on Box by Link Consulting is at the forefront of this transformation, offering a comprehensive, secure, cost-effective and user-friendly platform. For more information on how it can drive additional growth opportunities and a more efficient operation model, get in touch. We will also be more than happy to schedule a demo, and you can see it to believe it.

Biometrid and Link Consulting have joined forces to offer a digital onboarding solution that brings innovation, convenience, and security to modernizing the national and international financial sector.

Biometrid is a leader in remote identity verification, using biometrics and artificial intelligence to ensure the authenticity of individuals and match them with their identification documents. Imagine an authentication process without complicated passwords or lengthy forms, automatic contract formalization, and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) management.

With our advanced technology, authentication occurs quickly and securely, making the user experience smoother than ever before.

Link Consulting is a leading information technology consulting firm with operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Brazil. With a strong focus on innovation, Link stands out in technological strategy and cutting-edge solutions to help organizations create value through digital transformation, developing meaningful client partnerships.

Biometrid and Link Consulting elevate digital transformation solutions to a new level.

Partnership Benefits:

Simplified integration through BOB (#BankOnBox) and IOB (Investment On Box)
Digital onboarding journeys with simple and frictionless customer experience
Secure authentication and compliance with current legal regulations
Verification of the identity behind the screen through Proof of Life
Secure acquisition of international clients at a low cost

We are excited about the possibilities that this partnership will bring in the future.

Together, we build more agile, secure, and dynamic businesses. Modernization is within our reach, and we lead this transformation!

Like any journey, this one starts at a beginning, and in our case, it was call centers: a world where voices overlapped and phone lines never stopped ringing. We’re talking about years ago.

In that world, we discovered challenges: high costs, drained resources, and the constant need for expansion. But we also saw a door to a different future. A door that led us to video streaming for digital identification.

We want to invite you to a live webinar as an exclusive pass to this journey that now takes place in another dimension.

In it, we will explore:

• A glimpse of how your company can achieve significant cost savings and greater scalability by transitioning from the era of video conferencing to innovative digital identification with video streaming.
• How the eIDAS framework is changing the landscape of digital identification, including here in Portugal.
• How the qualified signature elevates authenticity and security in the most intuitive and advanced digital identification process.
• How your company can adopt these innovative technologies to stay ahead.
• There will be a few minutes at the end of the webinar for you to share your thoughts and concerns and ask us any questions you may have.

If you’ve ever felt that your company could benefit from a transformation, the opportunity is NOW. You have a more efficient, more cost-effective, and safer way within your reach.

The future of digital identification is happening, and we invite you to be a part of it. Your presence on this journey can change the course of your company.

Date and Time: November 9th, 11:00 AM Duration: Approximately 30-40 minutes

• You can ask us any questions you deem necessary.
• You will receive the recording, even if you can’t attend.
  

  I’m registering now

In 2022, however, the company decided to turn to a wider audience as well. To achieve this, a deep investment on digital was necessary. But without compromising security and compliance, which are critical issues in this activity.

A challenging move? Not quite. With the InvestOnBox solution, developed by Link, Sixty Degrees quickly had the online channel they needed for a direct relationship with their customers.

More agility, more dynamism, more market

With a number of pre-configured features, InvestOnBox brings simplicity to the life of both the managing society and the end user.

Opening an account, for example, is a fully automated process. The customer enters online not only their data, but everything required to validate the registration: Identification documents, signature and even a video selfie for biometric authentication. All the information is immediately integrated into the Sixty Degrees system, in an agile, safe and reliable way.

Following the opening of the account, the focus remains on agility. In a visual and intuitive way, clients have access to all the information about their investments: portfolio of assets, history, profitability. And these can easily be traded, via web or app, subscribing or redeeming units of funds with full autonomy.

The new channel brought extra dynamism to the expansion of Sixty Degrees. The whole operation has become simpler, from contacting customers to testing a product or placing it in the market. The product catalog – upgradable within minutes – acts as a smart, personalized store taking into account the customer’s profile for risk and interests.

And all this without geographical boundaries – bringing growth potential to Sixty Degrees.

An easy and user-friendly backoffice

If one of the strengths is the end customer experience, the easy operation of the platform is as well important. With InvestOnBox, is simple to update customer journeys, product catalog, or security settings. As well as consulting and replying to customer messages, handling pending orders and more.

All these operations take place in a user-friendly backoffice which allows, without programming needs, autonomously manage both the relationship with the client and the platform itself.

With InvestOnBox, Sixty Degrees won a direct channel with customers, a tool to save time and resources and, above all, a powerful growth tool.

In the words of Antonio Marques Dias, Company Partner:

“Sixty Degrees follows an agile and secure customer contact approach. However, the financial sector is still required to have face-to-face contact with the client due to the risks associated with money laundering and terrorist financing. With the InvestOnBox platform, integrated with the BiometrID solution, we can set up a fully digital, fluid and secure customer onboarding journey, while meeting all the requirements of national regulators.

In addition, InvestOnBox allows Sixty Degrees customers to track and analyze the performance of their portfolio on a daily basis, as well as issuing subscription and redemption orders safely and quickly. Investing in InvestOnBox has enabled Sixty Degrees to significantly increase its potential customers’ universe, by being available on any mobile or desktop device.”

About Sixty Degrees

Sixty Degrees is an investment management company of independent collective investment bodies launched in 2019. The company believes great investments come from the balance between 3 vertices: customer intimacy, operational excellence and leadership. This is the meaning of Sixty Degrees, creating a perfect balance of equal sized angles to form a perfect triangle.

About Link

Link is one of the leading IT companies in Portugal in Software Engineering, Digital Channels, Business Architecture, Systems Integration and DevOps. Thanks to its close relationship with IST and INESC, Link has access to the best IT engineers to build solutions for our customers’ specific challenges and needs.

Bank on Box (BoB) is a new generation banking app developed by Link Consulting that allows customers to perform a variety of banking transactions from their smartphones in just a few clicks, available 24×7 at a global scale, fully secure and compliant.

BNF Bank’s implementation of Bank on Box has clearly been successful and helped to establish BNF Bank as a leader in digital banking in Malta.

This digital solution has been recognized for its innovation and usability and helped to revolutionize the way that customers interact with their banks.

Congrats to Link Consulting and BNF Bank for embracing the future.

All you need to know about!

“Link provides a strong professional service delivery and this has
been consistent over the years. We have been very satisfied with our
relationship, and value the quality of service received. “

BNF Bank is a key player in the Maltese financial services sector. We strive to be the bank of choice for individuals and businesses, driven by the highest principles of ethical and social responsibility. We offer personal and business clients highly personalised products and services, through a network of 12 retail branches spread across the Maltese Islands, a Corporate and Business Banking center along with a local trading room as well as a strong team of Customer Care representatives. BNF Bank’s objectives are to continue generating a sustainable return on investment to continue on the positive growth trajectory experienced throughout the past years.  We thrive on providing an exceptional Customer Experience through an omni-channel approach. We have embarked on a digital transformation journey which will see us implement a new core banking system with the aim of enhancing our digital channels while becoming more efficient in our operations.

Developments in digital banking is high on the Bank’s agenda and significant investments are made towards developing and improving the Bank’s digital banking channels. With this in mind, such investments in the Bank’s digital transformation strategy will allow us to offer a first-class service to our customers, as well as satisfy regulatory commitments.

From Internet Banking user on-boarding, to user maintenance and servicing, the Bank on Box solution offers a user friendly GUI for the back-office operator to navigate with rich menu options and functionalities. All of which equate to simple and easy end user customer experience simultaneously on the Web or App channels.

Link have helped us improve the Customer Experience on the Internet Banking platform and also helped us launch our mobile app through their solution. An open channel of communication ensures that we are kept updated on market developments and Link’s capabilities.

Link provides a strong professional service delivery and this has been consistent over the years. We have been very satisfied with our relationship, and value the quality of service received.

The solution satisfies modern day digital banking transactional expectations and needs of customers. The SafeNet OTP verification with the biometric log in verification in the App channels is particularly popular with customers. Some examples that we could mention are the ability to do deliver targeted secure message campaigns and cross sell marketing banners in both web and app to users.

The platform is compliant with PSD2 requirements and flexible with ad-hoc enhancements and upgrades. Down time is at an absolute minimal even for required maintenance updates with little to no customer impact.

Angeles Linden
Senior Manager
BNF Bank

Link, a provider of a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for businesses aiming to offer digital products and services, has integrated its BankOnBox platform with Mambu. The partnership enables banks and financial service providers to leverage the combined benefits of Link’s BaaS platform and Mambu’s composable approach.

The growing customer demand for convenient financial products has driven the emergence of digital challengers like neobanks, fintechs, and non-bank lenders, such as telcos and retailers. BankOnBox caters to the needs of businesses looking to launch modern banking services to the market faster, with the ability to configure products depending on customer demands. The BaaS platform excels in the cost-benefit ratio far superior to the alternatives in the market, with a cost-per-use model, as well as a fast and agile deployment, complying with all security and regulatory requirements.

Link has more than 20 years of experience in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Brazil. Link is a technology-based company with solid experience in systems integration, information technology consulting, with particular emphasis on the financial sector.

Mambu launched in 2011 aiming to enable free access to modern financial services for all. Its unique composable approach allows for the quick and easy assembly of independent components and systems to meet business needs and end-user demands. Mambu’s cloud-native platform offers maximum flexibility and speed, giving customers a unique competitive edge.

José Teixeira, Financial Services Director at Link said, “This partnership offers a competitive ready-to-use solution for any entity looking to quickly provide financial services to their customers using digital channels, including fintechs, telecoms, retailers, asset management, banks, and specialized credit institutions.”

Rui Cardoso, Mambu’s Sales Manager for Southern Europe added, “Link adds a great deal of value to Mambu’s ecosystem. Their expertise in the channel area and integration technology, specialized staff, and strong connection to the AITEC group, are changing how financial products and services are built. The partnership enables us to offer a complete and integrated solution to financial institutions, with a cost structure in line with business growth.”

About Link

Link is a complete Information Technology Provider with specialized engineering capabilities enabling the creation of solutions tailored to the specific challenges and needs of our customers.

• WE DEVELOP our own Products and Solutions
• WE CREATE methodologies and Services to align IT and Businesses
• WE MASTER the most relevant IT Technologies

https://www.linkconsulting.com/

About Mambu

Mambu is the world’s only true SaaS cloud banking platform. Launched in 2011, Mambu fast-tracks the design and build of nearly any type of financial offering for banks of all sizes, lenders, fintechs, retailers, telcos and more. Our unique composable approach means that independent components, systems and connectors can be assembled in any configuration to meet business needs and end user demands. Mambu has 900 employees that support 230 customers in over 65 countries – including Western Union, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, N26, BancoEstado, OakNorth, Raiffeisen Bank, ABN AMRO, Bank Islam and Orange Bank.

https://mambu.com/

24 August 2022

Link also implemented the OpenBanking platform, in compliance with PSD2 European regulation, supported by the technology partner NDGIT, a German Fintech winner of several European awards in OpenBanking.

“For a bank such as we are, the focus in Digital Channels is crucial, and we must be agile and fast about offering new products and services to our clients. We chose BankOnBox because of its range of out-of-the-box features, its hybrid App and its “zero-code” configuration capabilities, which allowed us to have the solution operational and adapted to our needs very fast. And we chose Link because of their open-minded attitude, technical competence, business know-how and flexibility, which ensures the agility we need”, says Jorge Raminhos, Bison Bank’s Head of IT.

BankOnBox platform

Link Consulting’s BankOnBox platform currently supports the Internet and Mobile Banking solutions, both Individual and Corporate, of nearly twenty customers in Europe and Africa. Link has a product development team strongly committed to the constant evolution of BankOnBox, and a Support and Helpdesk team to assist customers, whom in many cases have trusted Link’s solution for over a decade now to support their Digital Banking solutions.

To know more: https://linkconsulting.com/linkconsulting/what-we-do/products/bank-on-box .

About Bison Bank

Bison Bank, S.A. is an European based bank fully held by private Chinese capital from Hong Kong, focused on providing a wide and specialized range of Wealth Management, Depositary & Custody and Investment Banking services to individuals and institutional Clients, through a seamless platform connecting European and Asian markets. The Bank is headquartered in Lisbon and leverages the development of its business activities on the shareholder’s wide geographic reach – strong business presence in Europe, Hong Kong and mainland China, as well as in Africa.

The Bank resulted from the acquisition in mid-2018 of former Banif – Banco de Investimento, S.A., a Portuguese based financial institution established in 2000 with universal license.

“For a bank such as we are, the focus in Digital Channels is crucial, and we must be agile and fast about offering new products and services to our clients. We chose BankOnBox because of its range of out-of-the-box features, its hybrid App and its “zero-code” configuration capabilities, which allowed us to have the solution operational and adapted to our needs very fast. And we chose Link because of their open-minded attitude, technical competence, business know-how and flexibility, which ensures the agility we need”, says Jorge Raminhos, Bison Bank’s Head of IT.

To know more: www.bisonbank.com.