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EMBRACING DIGITAL IN THE BANKING SECTOR
02
WRITTEN BY
SEAN GALEA-PACEPRODUCED BY
JAMES PEPPER
EMBRACING DIGITAL IN THE BANKING SECTOR 03
w w w.brd.ro
s one of the leading banks in Romania,
BRD - Groupe Société Générale is in the
midst of a significant digital transforma-
tion. Technology is considered the lifeblood of the
company and is central to operations.
BRD is the Romanian affiliate of Groupe Société
Générale and operates under its wider umbrella.
“It’s a flexible relationship,” explains Florin Boldescu,
Chief Digital Officer at the firm. “There’s many
banks from different countries all working together
and it provides a great opportunity to discuss new
ideas and learn from each other. It’s an open bank-
ing environment where all banks can work together
towards a common goal.”
BRD’s digital transformation ambitions are
focused on several key areas, such as: evolving
towards digital ready architecture (decoupling, API,
services), embracing Agility to deliver faster, be better
aligned with business teams, leverage a DevOps
approach (automation, software factory, cloud)
and provide a flexible workplace to employees.
A
Florin Boldescu, Chief Digital Officer, and Eric Ruiz, Chief Information Officer at BRD, discuss the importance of operating with an Agile approach and leveraging technology at their company
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B R D - G R O U P E S O C I É T É G É N É R A L E
Florin Boldescu, Chief Digital Officer, BRD
“ We were one of the first banks to launch a mobile banking app over a decade ago. It’s great to look back on and we’re proud that we have brought our contribution”
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B R D - G R O U P E S O C I É T É G É N É R A L E
Both Boldescu and Eric Ruiz, Chief
Information Officer at BRD, believes in
the importance of embracing change
amidst a major shift in culture. “We
were one of the first banks to launch
a mobile banking app over a decade
ago. It’s great to look back on and
we’re proud that we have brought our
contribution,” says Boldescu. “The entire
banking industry is an open and highly
dynamic environment and in order to
meet these challenges, it requires a
change in culture. Sometimes you need
to overhaul the business in order to
change your perception and the way
you make decisions. This led to the
creation of the Digital Hub.”
BRD’s Digital Hub has been devel-
oped to allow for better interaction
with customers and is a key part of its
strategy to cover several channels
and better meet individual customer
demands. “Over the past year, the
market has shifted in a unique way,”
explains Boldescu. “Although change
is great, we can’t afford to leave people
behind. We have to ensure we migrate
the older generation smoothly and
make the transition as easy as possible.”
With the Romanian market experiencing
CLICK TO WATCH: ‘BRD. THE FUTURE IS YOU’
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B R D - G R O U P E S O C I É T É G É N É R A L E
Eric Ruiz, Chief Information Officer, BRD
“ We value innovation and want to provide its value to our customers”
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www.itsmartsystems.eu
Let’s talk Digital17
over
YEARS OFEXPERIENCE
Smart Fintech
Service Oriented Architecture
Customer Digital Experience
Identity Access Management
high levels of growth over the past few
years, BRD has established a more
seamless, omnichannel approach in a
bid to improve its user experience. “We
still have customers that like to come
into a branch to do their banking but in
Romania, digital is becoming increas-
ingly prominent,” says Ruiz. “There’s
substantial competition and some of our
competitors might have great ideas so
we can’t stand still.” Due to the accel-
eration of digitalisation in the banking
industry, Ruiz adds Agile software
development (Agile) has become a key
www.itsmartsystems.eu
Let’s talk Digital17
over
YEARS OFEXPERIENCE
Smart Fintech
Service Oriented Architecture
Customer Digital Experience
Identity Access Management
$25mn+
1923
6,800
Revenue in euros (2017)
Year founded
Number of employees
Florin Boldescu
Boldescu has over 20 years’ experience in the telecom and
banking industries, in areas including: customer service, product
management, business management and digital
transformation. He is passionate about people using
technology, innovation, enterprise transformation
and software delivery models. Recently, he has
focused on digital strategy and transformation;
currently he oversees the execution of a digital
agenda, retail and corporate, with the support
of a Digital Hub. The most important product
built here is an omnichannel platform, which
is going to manage the access to the bank’s
services for more than two million customers.
EXECUTIVE PROFILE
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EXECUTIVE PROFILE
Eric Ruiz
Eric has managed IT at BRD Romania for more than two years,
with the ambition of transforming the way IT provides value to
the business in its digitalisation and automation objectives.
Previously, Eric was dep CIO and global CTO
for Russia SG entities, supporting 15.000
employees over 11 time zones. Prior to that,
he was CIO and business process improvement
manager for the Russian consumer finance
subsidiary of SG, enabling it to become
number one in car loans in Russia. He also
held the position of COO of SG Ukrainian
subsidiary, and was responsible for IT/back-office, and
the acceptance and administration departments. He
was also global middleware manager in New York
investment bank subsidiary of SG.
component of BRD’s transformation.
“In order to implement Agile, we first had
to determine exactly what it is and what
we wanted it to achieve. To accom-
plish this, establishing a step-by-step
approach was essential,” explains Ruiz.
“Agile is a new way of working and we’ve
trained our people and paired them with
an Agile coach. It’s a great way to make
processes more efficient and drive real
value for our business.”
In a bid to drive operations, BRD
has established several strategic
partnerships such as IT Smart Systems
and Backbase. “Our partner, IT Smart
Systems (ITSS), has made an impor-
tant contribution to our digital
transformation journey and continues
to show a strong commitment to meet
our common objectives inside the
omnichannel and OpenBanking &
PSD2 programmes,” explains Ruiz.
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B R D - G R O U P E S O C I É T É G É N É R A L E
“ITSS already helped BRD to digitalise
its corporate trade finance business
and also set up the PSD2 APIs.”
“With proven senior expertise on
Backbase Digital Banking, Forgerock
Digital Identity and digital transforma-
tion in general, IT Smart Systems’ team
of professionals work with us in the
Hub to help create that omnichannel
hyper-personalised yet secure user
experience for our customers and
employees,” adds Boldescu.
“We will continue to strengthen our
partnership with IT Smart Systems
as a trusted and valuable partner
for BRD.”
The banking world is showing
no signs of slowing down. Due to
the significant level of technology
at financial institutions, companies
now more than ever, are seeking to
digitalise their offerings and stream-
line services for their customers.
However, although the acceleration
of digital is primarily considered
a good thing, it also brings with
it the issue of cybercrime. To
combat this, Ruiz places consider-
able value on his firm’s cybersecurity
approach. “Every solution we put on
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B R D - G R O U P E S O C I É T É G É N É R A L E
15
the market is controlled by a security
team and each has its own security file.
It undergoes a penetration test, and
if there’s any issues that flag up, we
address it,” he explains. “We also con-
duct a regular vulnerability scanning,
internally and externally to ensure our
security is where it needs to be.”
With the future in mind, both men
harbour clear objectives for the next few
years. “Our idea for the future is digital
and especially mobile-first. We value
innovation and want to provide its value
to our customers,” summarises Ruiz. “Our
ambition is to completely digitalise the
customer experience — that’s the plan.”
Florin Boldescu, Chief Digital Officer, BRD
“ Over the past year, the market has shifted in a unique way”
w w w.brd.ro
1-7 Ion Mihalache Boulevard Bucharest 011171 Romania
T +4 021 302 6161
www.brd.ro
