The Royal Bank of Scotland is using Red Hat to power its Open Experience Centre.
The technology solutions centre, which was launched by RBS in February, is designed to pursue innovative new technologies for the bank and its customers and the bank is using technologies such as the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform and OpenShift Enterprise to power it.
The decision to use these technologies was made in order to support developers in the Open Experience centre to quickly develop, host, and scale applications in a cloud environment. Some of the key benefits sought from the technologies include the support for multiple languages, frameworks, databases and development tools.
RBS, like other banks, is under increasing pressure from new and more agile fintech players that have set about eating into traditional markets that they have held control over. Due to the increased pressure to maintain their market share, banks are being forced to look at changing their way of thinking and at what technologies they make available to customers.
It is with this in mind that RBS created the Open Experience centre in order to develop products and services within a framework that promotes closer, more collaborative work between businesses, customers and colleagues.
The addition of Red Hat’s Mobile Application Platform highlights the impact which mobile is having on digital transformation and innovation in businesses. Mobile has become a foundational piece that can help change business models, processes, and the customer experience.
Simon Johnson, head of infrastructure strategy and architecture, Royal Bank of Scotland said: "By leveraging Red Hat’s OpenShift and mobile software were we able to help support the Open Experience. The infrastructure spike we ran, supported by Red Hat, was critical in helping to build our innovation platform for Open Experience."
With 37% of consumers in Europe willing to consider leaving their banking and insurance providers if they do not offer up-to-date technology, according to a report by Fujitsu UK&I, it is increasingly important for banks to be proactive with the development of new features and services.
Citi Bank has already set about deploying beacon technology and Deutsche Bank is gathering ideas for how it can use AI in its banking services.
The RBS approach is seeing it work more with financial technology companies in order to develop new ideas and push them into customer pilots, while it is also seeking to identify emerging trends and technologies around the world.
The relationship between Red Hat and RBS is likely to expand in the future, with the bank expected to bring additional technologies from the open source company into Open Experience.
