Comarch aims to bridge Asian banks’ innovation with wealth needs

The Polish tech firm is looking to help banks build their wealth management platforms.

Asia is the centre of innovation for retail banking; Europe is ahead when it comes to wealth management services. Poland-headquartered company Comarch S.A. believes that they just might be able to bridge the gap between the two.

Specifically, Comarch is looking to help Asian banks scale up their wealth management platforms whilst not discounting their innovative spirit.

“Asian banks are very innovative, especially in retail; they are much more innovative than banks here in Europe,” Andrzej Przewięźlikowski, vice president and director of the Financial Services Division at Comarch, told Asian Banking & Finance.

Przewięźlikowski gave an exclusive interview during the Comarch User Group 2024 conference held in Krakow, Poland on 5 June. “Right now, Europe is looking to Asia for innovation. But that’s in retail, he said.

The Comarch executive observed growing interest amongst banks in SEA for wealth management, which may be due to regulatory changes.

“Whenever we show [the banks] the portfolio that we have of wealth management products and the module, it really draws their attention, because this is something that they have not leveraged so much yet,” he said, noting reactions from their clients in Thailand and Malaysia.

At present, Comarch is gearing up to open operations in Indonesia and Vietnam.

One expectation that banks in Asia carry in the creation of their wealth management platforms is the need for services to be more “open”— that is, more customisable from their end without relying on the vendors to make the changes on their behalf, whilst still maintaining a fast turnaround time.

“They want to develop parts of the solution by themselves. They want APIs. And most of the solutions available in the market didn't have that ability because most of them are packaged products, which have to be heavily customised by the vendor in order to be able to deploy that solution and meet the demands of the market,” Przewięźlikowski said.

What services are Asian banks looking to scale up?
When we’re talking about things like wealth management, like investment management, this is something that European banks and us [Comarch] here have a lot more experience in, and something that is not yet really present in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region. We have seen that, whenever we show them the portfolio that we have of wealth management products and the module that we have, it really draws the attention of the banks in Asia because this is something that they have not leveraged so much yet.

Right now, because of changes in the regulation of the ASEAN region, people in Asia are able to invest much more of their money in different investment funds, whether that be local investment funds and even international investment funds.

What are the biggest concerns that banks have when they work with vendors?
For many years when we’ve been delivering software to banks, and again it also depends on the segment, but especially in corporate banking, we have heard that banks really want their services to be more open. They want to develop parts of the solution by themselves, they want APIs. And most of the solutions available in the market didn't have that ability because most of them are packaged products, which have to be heavily customised by the vendor in order to be able to deploy that solution and meet the demands of the market. 

And [Comarch] is doing the exact same thing for many years until we realised that the world has changed. We are not talking anymore about projects that last three to five years, we are talking about quick deployment of modules within a couple of weeks even.

So we came up with this concept based on our experience of our platform, which is basically the framework— us, the banks, and third party integrators, to build the platform and services in a quick manner.

They don’t want to be vendor reliant; they can do it by themselves. They can use us, they can use their in-company integrator however they prefer to do it. Or maybe [they] have some partners who already have existing products and services that use micro services and APIs. It can be easily plugged in the open platform, creating this ecosystem of the solution much faster than any of the vendors [using] the traditional legacy models.

What emerging trends in Asia excites Comarch?
There is a huge difference in mobile adoption between Europe and Asia. We can see that for us traditionally, the desktop was an ancient operation; in Asia it’s more prevalent.

We see many banks which are totally not developing desktop integration; they’re just [developing] mobile. And this is something that is an eye-opener for us, because as I mentioned, the innovation happens in Asia, not in Europe. I strongly believe that things like those mobile applications, which have multiple services plugged in for SMEs and not just for retail customers, will be something that will spread out and do well. It will come to Europe, and it will come to the Americas. This is something that we are really looking forward to.

What are Comarch’s goals in Asia?
We will grow our footprint in Asia, especially in the area of wealth management mobile platforms. That’s the main one [that] we are seeing development in.

We are looking to expand our presence in Asia by acquisitions.

We are looking at a couple of companies; we’re doing due diligence in some of them, and maybe soon I will be able to announce the success in takeover and establishing not only sales and consulting, but also developments and research.