Banks have started realizing the importance of pricing as a banking enterprise entity. Core banking solutions fit well as technology solutions for banks’ day-to-day business.
However, the core banking solution itself cannot cater to all the fee-income needs of a bank. This is attributable to the complex nature of each bank with regard to its independent departments or business silos and their disparate systems. Over a period of time, what results is a severe inability to visualize the fee income or pricing of charges at the enterprise level.

How a Core Banking Solution Works
A core banking solution, often referred to as a CBS, typically has a GL subsystem at its core with plug-in satellite modules catering to the various divisions of the bank. The satellite modules, referred to as “modules,” cater to the business functionalities of the various lines of business of the bank. Typical CBS modules include but are not limited to:
Non-financial modules:

• Customer definition and accounts
• Customer limits definition, lines of credit, a central bank reporting structure
• Messaging and advice
• End-of-day processing modules, etc.

Financial modules:

• Loans, deposits, money markets
• Letters of credits and bills
• Treasury
• Liquidity management
• Local payments and cross-border
  payments
• Nostro reconciliations
• Interest and charge definitions, etc.

Each silo or line of business employs one or more of these modules to run its business. The modules are used to create contracts with customers at the branch level for various products. For example, a short-term, fixed-rate loan contract for the account of a large corporate customer has multiple components associated with it, such as the contract-principal component, tax component, interest component, product-preference component,
charge component, etc.

Transactions are generated at the component level during various events of the contract life cycle, such as contract initiation, booking, accrual, liquidation, rollover, advice generation, contract cancellation, etc. Such dollar (or any other currency) transactions hit the accounting and GL subsystem at the core. Thus, the core GL and accounting system ties the various silos together.
As we have seen, the CBS and its modules are used by the lines of business to manage customer contracts and their life cycles as well as most income classified as non-fee income.

Core Banking and Fee Income

The modules in a CBS have a charge component associated with a customer contract that allows the bank to charge fees. This charge component can generate transactions during various events. The charges, however, are only basic charges that could be required at Read More »