In the face of the declining margins and increasing competition, such factors as continuity of provision of financial services to customers, rapid introduction of new products, reduction of the time of loan application consideration and ensuring a high level of data security and clients' funds' safety are becoming very important to the Russian banks. INLINE Technologies CEO Sergey KRYUKOV spoke to NBJ about how their company is helping banks to address these and other pressing problems.

NBJ: Sergey Viktorovich, please tell us about the history of INLINE Technologies. How long has it been working on the Russian market and what are the main areas of its activity?

S. KRYUKOV: INLINE Technologies was founded in 1999, and already then the main focus of our business was servicing the financial sector organizations. That was due to the following: the banks were among the first to have turned their attention to the automation of their activities, as they realized that for them information technology was not a luxury but a means of production. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that, along with telecommunication companies, our first clients were MDM Bank, Alfa-Bank, Bank "Vozrozhdenie".

If you look at ITG (INLINE Techno­logies Group) Holding, you can see that we strive to meet most of the needs of banking organizations. The Holding includes INPAS company dedicated to providing solutions for bank payment systems, Data-Line company providing IT outsourcing services and cloud services through its own data center network, Peak Systems company, which specializes in developing smart card based solutions. At the same time, the financial segment's share in ITG's income is more than 30%.

NBJ: Almost 15 years is quite a considerable period. Have your company's principles ever changed?

S. KRYUKOV: Of course. We started with equipment supplies, but now our main focus is the development of software solutions intended to increase the efficiency of our customers. The banking sector has become more mature, and respectively, its requirements to software products have become more diversified. At some point it has become understood that to purchase costly equipment and put it in the office is not enough to achieve positive results in terms of business. Integrated solutions are required, such as turnkey data centers, business process monitoring systems, ATM cash monitoring systems.

NBJ: Do you build data centers or lease them to the banks?

S. KRYUKOV: It depends on the wishes of the customer. There are credit organizations that are interested in owning the new data center, and there are those who are quite happy renting rack space and equipment in our data centers.

In many cases, rent or outsourcing is a good decision. You probably know how difficult it is for the banks to recruit staff to address specific tasks: subject matter experts are very expensive, because there aren't many of them. Here, we are also willing to help financial institutions by offering them our employees for outstaffing.

NBJ: Which areas are you focused on today?

S. KRYUKOV: First of all, the socalled cloud technologies - providing credit organizations with service platforms on which to build monitoring systems. If the bank does not have enough of its own IT resources or professionals, it can contact us and we will provide it with the necessary tool to monitor the communication channels, equip­ment load, quality of business processes. In this area, our company is one of the leaders in the market because of the unique solutions that we are able to offer to our customers. That is why we now often refer to ourselves as a business integrator, although until recently we used to position ourselves as a system integrator.

NBJ: What is the difference between the two?

S. KRYUKOV: When we were a system integrator, then, working, for example, with banks, we proceeded primarily from the needs of their IT services. Now we are more and more "going into the client's business". The banks' IT professionals do not always understand that problem solving must not be approached solely from the point of view of technology, without taking into account the interests of the business as a whole. We see our mission in being the link between the IT services and business units of the banks. We do this not only in order to maxi­mize the potential profits - we're very interested in understanding how the customer's business works.

NBJ: Apparently, this knowledge helps your company anticipate the needs of the existing and the potential customers?

S. KRYUKOV: Yes, surely. It is thanks to this that such our product as the banking service quality monitoring system has been created. Agree that a financial and credit institution can easily lose a significant portion of customers if their internet banking starts failing or the offices are overloaded. The service quality monitoring system allows the bank to avoid such incidents, making it friendlier to the customers.

A product I would also like to mention in our conversation is the customer evaluation system. The bank needs to understand what the history of a particular company is, what its turnovers and loan service capabilities are, etc.

NBJ: A kind of extended scoring?

S. KRYUKOV: This is a search and analysis system, which allows the bank to put together a detailed customer dossier from public sources. I must say that several financial institutions have already deployed this system, and our customers are satisfied with its performance. Thanks to it, the percentage of non-preforming loans gets significantly reduced, whereas the process of consideration and approval of loan applications gets simplified because it is no longer necessary to painstakingly gather informa­tion about the potential borrower.

NBJ: As far as I know, 2012 was a very successful year for your company, to a large extent thanks to active cooperation with the banks?

S. KRYUKOV: It really was. Compared with 2011, in 2012, the revenues of INLINE Technologies from the implementation of projects in banks grew by 40%. At the same time the number of our partner financial and credit institutions increased. At this point, the number of banks with which we are implementing joint projects is about 30.

NBJ: Do those include only large organizations or your services are available to both medium-sized and small banks?

S. KRYUKOV: Our partner organizations are different in size, market share and specialization. Business process automation services are important for all banks regardless of their position in the rankings. As for the availability of our services, as I have said, there is always a possibility to get them through outsourcing. We can see how outsourcing in the banking sector is gaining strength in the West, and there are reasons to believe that our banking market will be heading in the same direction.

NBJ: Final question - what would you say to be the main competitive advantage of INLINE Technologies in comparison with the other market participants?

S. KRYUKOV: I'll answer your question this way: our main difference and the advantage is that we always build our business on the principle of a team composed of the customer, producer and integrator. All of its members are working to achieve the optimal goal, and not to maximize own profits. If this principle is adhered to, the customer will receive a product that meets or even exceeds its expectations, while the integrator and the producer will obtain a partner with whom they may implement many joint projects. Our experience confirms the soundness of such a strategy: for money being adequate for the customer, we strive to provide it with the highest level of the product itself and the related services.