We’re witnessing the creative destruction of financial services, rearranging itself around the consumer.

Fintech, Block Chain, Crypto, security and non-traditional players demand financial institutions evolve rapidly.

The CTO Group has extensive experience working with banks worldwide as well as creating a “greenfield” Sharia bank in the Middle East.

Strategies & Architecture – EIA

  • We’ve reviewed existing enterprise architectures, defined, developed and assisted in the deployment of new Enterprise Information Architecture, EIA and reference it to several industry frameworks (ITIL, Zachman, TOGAF, etc.) for adherence.

Requirements & Architectures

  • We lead efforts to develop Architecture Strategies & Standards, three tier architectures, Technical Reference Models and Technical Architectures. We evaluated portal technology and deployment and assisted establishing a new portal architecture & roadmap.
  • We formed a multi-bank consortium (10 major worldwide banks as initial sponsors) to create a user defined thin client architecture and model suitable for a new network computing environment.
  • We identified and reviewed application architecture best practices, with special discussion of a Best of Breed approach versus Integrated applications and assisted transitioning to the delivery of web services utilizing a Service Oriented Architecture.
  • Lead Security, Middleware, and Internet architecture design and deployment.
  • Lead the requirements definition, evaluation and applications and tools selection to create a Unified Management Environment including systems & network management tool.

IT Governance

  • We reviewed, evaluated, and suggested revisions to the IT Governance process with respect to COBIT, utilizing governance trends & best practices and mentored the implementation of the new process.
  • For the greenfield bank we were tasked to define the IT Governance Models for eight domains and to establish an evolutionary path for implementation through various stages of the organization’s maturity.

IT Role, Organization, Structure & Processes

  • We defined the strategic role of IT; examined key forces and trends driving web technologies; identified primary existing IT Capabilities, Organization Structure, and Vendor Management and related those to current trends & best practices especially outsourcing, including defining the best sourcing option for a new major middle eastern bank as part of the “bring up” plan.
  • We developed an IT organization transformation plan to migrate from a standard functional structure into one more suitable for client facing development in a web-based environment including new development processes.
  • We reviewed and assessed IT Organization Structure for fitness in achieving strategic goals and reviewed existing processes to identify and establish best practice techniques to ensure quality development.

Finance & Project Management

  • We developed a 3-year IT spend forecast with particular attention to which budget categories were expected to experience the most significant growth and relate those projections to industry norms.
  • We provided program and project management and leadership for both internal personnel and suppliers.

We’ve done a lot as consultants and even more as line executives. You can contact us and talk about how we can help you.

Finance

Consumer
Retail Banking
Corporate
Commercial
Merchant Banking
Insurance
Investment Banking
Brokerage
Mortgage Loans
Private Banking
Private Equity
Online Banking
Pension Management
Commodities
Mutual Funds
Securities
Underwriting
Wealth Management
Asset Management
Credit Cards
Islamic Financial Services