Finastra teams up with IBM to boost corporate lending services

By Gloria Methri

Finastra and IBM have announced a collaboration to strengthen cloud-based lending solutions for financial institutions. The partnership enhances Finastra’s Lending Cloud Service (LCS), which provides cost-effective, managed services for corporate lending solutions, including Loan IQ, Trade Innovation, and Corporate Channels. Supported by IBM, the offering is available to Finastra clients across North America and Europe.

Steve Moe, Head of Technology for Lending at Finastra, said, “We are excited to make this announcement as it demonstrates momentum in continuing to provide seamless digital lending solutions to our customers. Part of our approach champions collaboration and tapping into partner core capabilities, and that is what we are doing here. Working with industry giants like IBM gives us huge scale, credible skills and a reliable and quick path to implement offerings that deliver value at speed for our customers.”

IBM is providing design and implementation for LCS, leveraging its generative AI for enterprise platform, watsonx, as part of operationally focused IBM Consulting assets to manage the new platform more efficiently and resiliently. IBM will also provide ongoing services to Finastra’s LCS clients in North America and Europe with the aim of helping Finastra continue to grow its business.

Shanker Ramamurthy, Global Managing Partner Banking & Financial Markets at IBM Consulting, said, “IBM is pleased to collaborate with Finastra on its modernised Lending Cloud Service, leveraging Microsoft Azure. It delivers a valuable offering that provides greater value, automation, resiliency and generative AI-powered insights and actions to its corporate clients.”

The Lending Cloud Service is delivered on Microsoft Azure and harnesses Finastra’s financial services technology expertise excellence and proven mission-critical solutions. A cornerstone of the new LCS is Service Value Management (SVM), a customer-first, continuous improvement, value-based approach to managing customers’ cloud transformation journey.

Combined with IBM’s established and reliable scalability, availability, and deep application management knowledge, users can benefit from:

• Quick deployment via a most valuable scope and pre-configured standing service
• Simplified and standardised system and business processes via service automation and tooling
• Enhanced value through the economics of cloud and additional features of the application
• Ongoing conformance with market protocols and applicable financial services industry standards
• Deep knowledge and expertise in application management for infrastructure management and resiliency delivered by IBM Consulting

The LCS complements the Finastra suite of leading solutions for end-to-end loan management.