-- New Asia Risk and Oracle survey indicates the road to modern finance and 
risk remains a work in progress in APAC

Less than a third of banking executives in Asia Pacific (APAC) are equipped to 
handle the changing regulatory landscape compared to 46 percent of their peers 
in North America and Europe, according to a new research developed by Asia Risk 
and Oracle. The survey reveals that banks in APAC are behind their counterparts 
in modernizing their finance and risk processes and their use of data.

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"Using data and innovation to drive business insights" ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2415094-1&h=3709239410&u=http%3A%2F%2Fora.cl%2Fc8FZ4&a=Using+data+and+innovation+to+drive+business+insights 
) examines more than 150 banking Chief Financial Officers (CFO), Chief Risk 
Officers (CRO) and other executives in key data roles and examines the state of 
integrated finance and how banks use data for business insights and to react to 
rapid changes in the regulatory environment.

However, the survey also indicates there is tremendous opportunity for 
forward-looking APAC banks to use data to turn their finance and risk functions 
into key drivers of added value and competitive advantage.

"For banks, the ability to see, know and balance the way they are performing 
and complying with regulations is mission-critical to their current operations 
and to every single decision and action they take to move forward. Our survey 
highlights how Asia Pacific banks are struggling to overcome the challenges 
with cost, risk and finance, regulations and the complexity of managing data," 
said Sonny Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Oracle Financial 
Services.

State of Modern Finance and Risk Today

    -- Operational silos and poor communication between finance and risk 
       functions and between different divisions within the bank are 
       hampering performance and the ability to use data to drive 
       profitability. 
    -- 51 percent say a single view of data to improve predictive power for 
       finance and risk is their greatest priority. 
    -- There is a need for the CFO, CRO to lead and drive the organisational 
       change sought through data governance and ownership. 
    -- There is increasing acceptance that response to regulatory change can 
       be accelerated by technology innovation. 

The survey highlights if banks are aligned to the right operating model, 
technology such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine-learning 
and robotic process automation can help deliver a step-change in efficiency. 
Technology can transform many of the manual processes banks rely on today, 
particularly those related to meeting regulatory requests and gaining useful 
data insights to meet business objectives.

"The presence of a single data source for risk, finance and accounting enables 
banks to perform timely analysis and reporting based on current and future 
scenarios," said Stuart Houston, Banking Innovation Advisor, Agile Finance and 
Risk, Oracle. "This could bring significant enhancement of current reporting, 
allowing financial institutions to concurrently perform risk and financial 
calculations for financial, management, and regulatory reporting from a single, 
unified source."

Survey results show CFOs and CROs seek strong ties between digital 
transformation efforts and delivering the right detail at the right frequency 
with the right governance and control to meet regulatory requirements. In order 
to meet complex regulatory requirements banks need an overall data strategy and 
to incorporate leading technologies to better manipulate the data in a 
transparent and controlled manner. 

"Today, integrated finance and risk involves a fair degree of intervention at 
the human level; there has to be quite a bit of advancement to enable it to 
innovate and take advantage of the rapid strides in digital technology," said 
Madhivanan Balakrishnan, Chief Technology and Digital Officer, ICICI Bank.

Risk and Finance Alignment Differs in APAC vs. US and EMEA

    -- 70 percent of respondents rate better organisational alignment as 
       critical or very important. 
    -- Twenty percent of APAC respondents say they are siloed, compared with 
       only two percent among banking executives surveyed in US and Europe. 
    -- Only 25 percent of banks with more than $500B in assets say they are 
       fully aligned. For smaller banks, 50 percent believe they have full 
       alignment between the risk and finance functions. 
    -- One-third (34 percent) of executives in APAC see the opportunity for 
       improved insight and clarity compared with over half (52 percent) in 
       more developed markets. 

While regulation is a burden, it also presents finance and risk teams with the 
opportunity to improve productivity, turning a cost drain into a potential 
profit centre by allowing more time to focus on higher value strategic activity.

Future of Agile Risk & Finance

As complex regulatory requirements continue it will be more important than ever 
for banks to invest in the right risk mitigation tools to meet complex 
reporting needs and improve data collaboration. Respondents are equally 
challenged with finding and retaining skilled staff. There is widespread belief 
that successful adoption of cognitive technology will be needed to overcome 
this, and to help meet growing demands to deliver regulatory, statutory and 
management reporting with complete transparency.

An executive from a large bank said few banks have a system that can easily and 
automatically generate needed reports for regulators. To address this challenge 
banks rely more and more on manual intervention, when in fact "what's needed is 
a system where a regulation implemented today can be put into effect tomorrow."

This quantitative survey of banking executives and follow-up interviews took 
place between November 2018 and January 2019. To access the full survey "Using 
data and innovation to drive business insights" please visit: 
http://ora.cl/c8FZ4

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers a complete suite of integrated applications for Sales, 
Service, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Supply Chain and Manufacturing, 
plus Highly Automated and Secure Generation 2 Infrastructure featuring the 
Oracle Autonomous Database. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), 
please visit us at oracle.com ( 
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).

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Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

About Asia Risk 

Asia Risk is the only publication dedicated to meeting the information needs of 
risk management and derivatives professionals in the Asia-Pacific region.

SOURCE Oracle

CONTACT: Ms. Prisita Menon, Executive Director, Asia-Pacific, Head of 
Singapore, Cognito, +65 6221 7310 | +65 9856 4954 (Mobile), 
Prisita.Menon@cognitomedia.com; or Judi Palmer, Oracle Financial Services - 
Public Relations, +1 650 784 7901 (Mobile), Judi.palmer@oracle.com; or Sharon 
Tan, Oracle Financial Services | Asia Pacific & Japan, +65 9680 6845 (Mobile) | 
+65 6436 1640 (Office), Sharon.s.tan@oracle.com