FIS focused on building AI solutions that deliver outcomes, says CTO
Fidelity Information Services (FIS) is focused on building AI products that go much beyond the conventional goal of higher efficiency and deliver completely different outcomes.
FIS (Fidelity Information Services), the global financial technology company which has its largest technology centre outside of its US headquarters in India, has entered into the phase of implementing artificial intelligence (AI) based solutions both within the organisation and for its customer base.
The company believes that the phase of dabbling or experimenting with AI is over, and the time has come to come out with solutions that actually deliver outcomes.
In an interview with EnterpriseStory, FIS Chief Technology Officer Firdaus Bhathena said, “Our mission is to be the world's best in leveraging data and AI for the industry and for our client base.”
According to Bhathena, there have been two categories of efforts by FIS with regard to AI. One is leveraging AI for internal operational use cases, like further improving its coding functions. Secondly, partnering with those who are AI experts in certain functions that are not core to FIS, like HR.
Though the CTO remarked, “Where we are placing our biggest bets is when it comes to the platforms and products that change the world for our customers.”
Fidelity India has emerged as the tech backbone of the financial services giant
The portfolio of technology products from FIS straddles across the range of financial services, starting from deposits, transfers and investments.
Given how AI has become a disruptive technology, Bhathena remarked that their engagement with customers is focused on a single point of view of how they would like to be the disruptors and not be disrupted.
The CTO said FIS is now focused on navigating this disruption for its customers and delivering the right outcomes while also having the right skill sets.
FIS has already set up an enterprise AI governance council that goes across the entire company, where all AI use cases are vetted.
The top priorities for FIS in the implementation of AI, besides the standard benefits like operational efficiency and lowering costs, are looking at how it can leverage this tech platform in the area of bank consolidation, where it can largely automate the process of information extraction and reasoning.
Financial fraud is also another key focus area where it is looking at how it can deploy AI to make accurate and faster decisions to identify these events.
“We are investing in an enterprise data and AI platform that cuts across all of our products. It will be a critical infrastructure investment that we are making,” the CTO said.
India is playing a critical role in building these AI products and solutions for AI, as this is the only centre for FIS globally which has the talent across all the functions, be it client services, engineering, product management, finance, HR, etc.
At the same time, FIS is taking an “outside in” approach with respect to AI as it believes there are fresh ideas and perspectives coming in from its customer base, as well as the tech startups in India.
“Now we're building for the next 10 years. So we need to take an outside-in perspective, not an inside-out perspective. We need to engage with our clients and say, what are the things that you're going to care about?” said Bhathena.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan