San: Given RBS has a worldwide presence, how closely aligned is your regional IT mandate with that of the greater group’s technology strategy?


Rae: The regional IT strategy is 100 per cent aligned with the global strategy with allowance for regional or local variances where necessary. In fact the boundaries between global versus regional are becoming blurred as our businesses become more global and the traditional ‘Head Office’ context, whilst still important, becomes less dominant. As an example, we have an increasing number of global projects being led from the region where the characteristics of business make it sensible to do so (e.g.  the development of a regulatory reporting platform).


San: What do you consider to be the most innovative technology trends emerging within the Asian banking sector right now?


Rae: A number of technologies that were considered innovative a short while ago are now becoming normal practice. Virtualisation, virtual desktop and remote working are now key to delivering technology services to a geographically dispersed and dynamic workforce. In terms of innovation emerging right now, I think cloud computing has a way to go yet before adoption takes place in financial markets. I think another area that will mature rapidly and where usage in a social and business context will converge relates to collaboration technologies and applications.


San: ANZ recently acquired Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) Asian retail and SME banking assets. What are the short-term IT integration plans (if any)?


Rae: RBS sold Retail & SME businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia along with our wholesale banking businesses in Taiwan (excluding the Securities business), Vietnam and the Philippines to ANZ. We are working with ANZ on the smooth transition of the excellent customer franchises we have built to their ownership.


Any additional question on the integration should be passed to ANZ to answer.


San: RBS recently implemented a real-time confirmation platform system called Smartstream TLM Treasury Confirmations Matching. Can you briefly describe this initiative; and how will success be measured?


Rae: This implementation is something we are very proud of and won an industry award for “Best Back Office Trading Project” last year from The Asian Banker. It involved the deployment of an automated Treasury confirmation matching platform that can handle daily volumes of up to 150,000 trades. It has enabled RBS to manage our foreign exchange trading operations more effectively by improving matching rates of transactions and significantly reducing manual intervention. Success is measured by client satisfaction and the number of trades that require no manual intervention both of which have improved substantially. 


San: What technology initiatives are set to dominate your IT agenda in the coming year?


Rae: The dominant technology initiatives are related to a focus on enhanced risk management platforms and more efficient processing platforms.  Alongside this is the need to have seamless delivery of applications to end users with desktop, video or remote working.


San: What are the primary customer channels of choice for RBS customers; and how do you see these evolving in the next two to three years?


Rae: In wholesale banking, e-commerce is absolutely key to retaining and growing market share. Clients are demanding a wider range of products and functions from e-commerce platforms and we also need to increase functionality to improve our own levels of efficiency. We are moving away from traditional e-trading platforms to platforms that provide a whole range of pre and post trade functions across a whole range of financial markets products and asset classes (FX, Rates, and Equities).


San: What advice can you provide IT executives seeking employment in Asia’s banking industry?


Rae: Understand the business that you are working with, understand what your client’s demands are, what the business goals are and the underlying processes. Use that understanding with knowledge of the technology environment to drive the business agenda and to bring solutions to business problems.


San: From a technology perspective, how would you describe Singapore’s financial services market in three words?


Rae: Vibrant, challenging, and exciting.


San: Every IT, particularly at your level, has a legacy they wish to be remembered for. What is yours?


Rae: I would like to be remembered as someone who pushed things forward, drove the business and technology agenda and led a highly talented and motivated team to success.