Level of IT penetration in the banking system increases

Interview of the Director of “LSOFT” Company Larisa Lalayan to Mediamax Agency and Banks.am and Itel.am portals

“LSOFT” Company was founded in 1995. It is specializing in elaboration and maintenance of software support for companies of the financial sector, offering complex solutions in various directions to market participants. The Company is also the official partner of Oracle Company in Armenia.
In 2000 “LSOFT”  company was awarded International Gold Star Award for Quality by Business Initiative Directions (BID). In October, 2008, the company was issued a certificate on meeting requirements of Quality Management System International Standards - ISO 9001:2000.

- Banks have started attaching a significant role to implementation of new technologies among their competitive advantages. What solutions are offered by “LSOFT” to the banking system?

- The level of IT advanced technologies’ penetration into the banking system increases along with expansion of functional capacities of banks, the striving for increase of the quality of provided services and, simultaneously, for optimization of operational processes. In this context, IT components of a bank should represent a reliable basis for all business processes.

The main direction of our company’s activity is elaboration and implementation of software products, aiming at automating the activity of financial organizations. Concerning commercial banks, we have elaborated and implemented an Automated Banking System (ABS) LSBank over the past two years. The system works in on-line mode. This is a fundamentally new approach, which allows taking the functioning of banks to a new quality level.

The system aims at centralizing work of banks, increasing efficiency and manageability of all operational processes. Besides, due to introduction of LSBank, maximum efficiency in data processing is secured, as well as the opportunity to provide services to a large number of customers, who gain the chance to receive the bank’s services in any branch of the bank, irrespective of the registration in a particular branch.

Complex LSBank ABS is built on the basis of a single accounting core and covers all basic directions in the functioning of the Central Bank and commercial banks. At the same time, the opportunity to adapt the system to the requirements of a particular customer is also provided for.

We have already completed introduction of the program on-line version in our two largest customers: in “VTB Bank (Armenia)” CJSC and “Unibank” CJC. And we are preparing to introduce the system in “Artsakhbank” CJSC and “Anelik Bank” CJSC.

Our company has elaborated products also in the sphere of distance banking service, in particular, “Bank-Client”, “Phone-Client, “SMS-Banking” systems.

- How wide is the range of your products? What segments of the market does it cover?

- The mechanism of automation of operational processes is the basis of our products. It is meant for almost all participants of the financial market. In particular, the company has elaborated and implemented automated systems for the Central Bank – (LSBank), for credit organizations – (LSLoan), for pawn shops – (LSLombard). LSFinance program –a full solution for automation of activities of Central Treasuries of the Ministry of Finance, as well as (LSBudget) program, meant for providing formation and print of state budget, are realized.

Our software products cross the limits of the financial market. In particular, by the order of the Ministry of Education, we have elaborated a system for calculating statistic data of Armenian comprehensive schools’ activity.

- Has the crisis influenced the realization of new projects?

- We do not feel any special “breaking” in realization of new projects. One of the reasons is that quite some time passes from the moment of the idea being born and its realization in the form of a software product, and in that period the customers can plan their budget taking into account future investments.

At the same time, I consider it natural that under crisis, companies are careful as to realization of long-term and relatively costly projects.

- What are the advantages of your company?

- We produce and maintain specific products, meant for mass consumption. In this context, one can understand that there are not many companies dealing with developing products in this sphere, however the market, as to the number of participants, is not large either.

Of course, there is competition and this is why the development strategy of “LSOFT” is based on the necessity of constant research and reaction to the needs and suggestions of customers, update of the product line. The only problem is that the customers do not always clearly present their needs, they do not have detailed and well-worded requirements.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I would like to highly assess our business partnership with Oracle, which gives us the right to represent this company’s products, realize installation of software support and provide technical consultations at preferential tariffs for our customers.

Besides, today we are entering a new level of organizing business processes, in many respects due to implementation of the Quality Management System (QMS).

- There is opinion that QMS is limited to introduction of a certain set of documents in the records management and receiving a certificate. What does this system mean for you?

- First of all, this is transformation of the way of thinking and stereotypes, search for new methods for organizing work and management. QMS is a set of tools, which allows, given competent use, revealing strengths and weaknesses of the company, developing and improving it. 

QMS is constant improvement of processes inside an organization. At that, improvement never becomes an end in itself and is always directed at meeting the needs of the customers. We involve customers in the process of improving the company’s activity, jointly reveal the “bottlenecks” in work and eliminate them. At the same time we make suggestions, and sometimes put forward our requirements, aiming at increasing efficiency and quality of the joint work. We are grateful to our customers for the fact that they realize the importance and the necessity of changes, help us and even demonstrate initiative.