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The $10-billion Fidelity Information Services (FIS)’s GCC in India has over 15,000 people who are core to the company’s effort to shift from a services-led business to a product-led one
BENGALURU:
We first met Ramkumar Narayanan when he was leading VMware’s technology centre in India. But prior to that, he had had experience with three other GCCs in India. First with Microsoft, where he helped align business units to build a larger strategy for India – the centre expanded rapidly in this period, and went on to become MS’ biggest outside the US. Then at Yahoo, where he led product management and eventually ran its search, commerce, and emerging markets businesses globally. And then eBay, where he set up the Bengaluru centre, but also shut it down, when eBay decided to exit India.In 2018, when he joined VMware, the then CEO Pat Gelsinger gave Narayanan three mandates – grow the centre from about 3,000 people to 10,000, help connect the GCC more meaningfully to the rest of the company, and help build leadership. And that’s what he did. When Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, the India centre had 10,500 people, and had developed many global leaders heading key projects.Narayanan’s job now is to similarly help transform the $10-billion Fidelity Information Services (FIS). This Fidelity, by the way, is completely different from the better known Fidelity Investments. When Narayanan was first approached to lead FIS’ GCC in India and Philippines, even he assumed the offer was coming from Fidelity Investments.While it’s not a household name, FIS touches most of us, and in ways we do not see. It’s at the heart of the global financial industry. It’s estimated that FIS’ technology handles about 10% of global GDP. Many banks, large and small, use its core banking solutions – these are foundational software needed for basic functions like account management, transaction processing, and customer information. Banks also use its solutions that enable money to be moved globally from one bank to another – the software processes this end-to-end. Even a UPI transaction in India may be routed using an FIS switch. FIS also has solutions for capital markets, including trading platforms, settlement systems and treasury management software.
From services-led to product-led
FIS’ origins are in a mainframe-based core banking platform called Systematics. However, over the years, Narayanan says, FIS had become primarily a professional services firm, acquiring companies, their products and customer bases, and implementing these solutions and managing them. But, he says, since 2022, when Stephanie Ferris took over as CEO, FIS has been on a journey to shift from being a services-led company to a product-led one.“As a fintech company, we believe the future lies in being product centric. Since India represents a significant portion of the company (30% of the 50,000 employees globally), my role at FIS is to lead that transformation here – aligning India’s operations with the company’s product-focused vision. This means upskilling teams, shifting mindsets, changing how and in which areas we work,” he says.The company, including the GCC, is currently in the process of identifying the products that will drive future growth, the ones it needs to modernise. It is integrating new technologies like AI throughout the company. India, Narayanan says, plays a significant role in all three areas – future growth, efficient maintenance of the existing portfolio, and technology transformation.
India builds modern banking platform
FIS’ next-generation core banking product, called Modern Banking Platform (MBP), has been largely built and led from India, with both engineering and product management leadership based here. “It is designed as a replacement for our legacy mainframe-based Systematics core. MBP is cloud-native and built from scratch with a modern, microservices-based architecture,” Narayanan says. Legacy systems are large, complex, and tightly integrated, making them difficult and expensive to modify or update. It’s tough to scale such systems when transaction volumes grow. Introducing new services requires major changes. Cloud architecture solves all of these problems, enabling banks to be really agile.
FIS techies at their recent innovation competition in India
The AI centre of excellence (CoE) in India has developed what’s called Treasury GPT, where customers can simply ask questions like: “What’s the best investment vehicle for this scenario?” And it provides a list of suitable options by pulling data from multiple sources such as stock exchanges and other financial feeds, saving treasury teams a lot of time. The CoE has built an agentic AI solution for front-end banking. When a customer visits a bank to open an account, the AI, with customer consent, listens to the conversation with the bank officer, and automatically fills out the forms. It ensures all required questions are asked. A lot of time is taken and mistakes happen, Narayanan says, because of paperwork. This solution reduces errors and saves time.———————–
Ramkumar Narayanan, EVP & Head, FIS India and Philippines Technology and Services Organisation
On breadth of offering
There are very few companies that have the breadth we offer from a customer perspective – across banking, payments, and capital markets. This gives us a unique view into what’s happening in the fintech space. More than just perspective, we play a role in shaping the future of this space. Our India GCC has an advantage, like most large GCCs, in being a collection point for everything across the company. We have visibility across banking, payments, and capital markets, something not possible in most other locations. This gives us a strategic advantage to drive transformation.
On India strength
Our three big development centres are Bengaluru, Pune, and Chennai. We also have teams in Mohali, Gurugram, Mumbai, and Hyderabad…One of our strengths is having a well-evolved AI centre of excellence (CoE), making us uniquely positioned to advise the company on using AI both internally and externally. From India, we are contributing this knowledge and collaborating globally…More senior leaders in India now hold global responsibilities. We’ve hired VPs in product management, engineering, and professional services who own global charters. One of them is responsible for all card and money movement products globally.
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