HSBC is one of the world’s top banks who have not only have been helping customers with their money for over 150 years, but who also have a presence in 66 countries world-wide.

But, despite their current success, in India at least, the bank have been struggling with issues in flexibility and speed when it came to IT, having particular trouble with external challenges and traditional modes of technology. But now, as software develops, they are now optimising the use of DevOps and Agile to encourage their development as a company even more.

Balasubramanian Ganesh, Chairman & Head of HSBC Technology India (HTI) spoke to The Economic Times about how they transformed their relationship with IT and software through their employment of DevOps and Agile in one of the biggest financial organisations in the world. “From fraud detection, to automating components of customer service, these next gen technologies, along with Cloud, are integral to the next phase of our digital transformation.”

“We continue to migrate more data and services to the cloud, which also enables us to optimally utilise AI and ML technologies. We are also leveraging biometrics to provide a more secure and simpler banking experience for our customers in different businesses and markets.”

Last year, HSBC Technology India was also awarded a NASSCOM (an award associated with IT and Business) and on discussing the award Ganesh said, “We received the award for our multi-pronged approach to training and up-skilling colleagues.”

Ganesh also told The Economic Times that implementing DevOps and Agile into a team was not always a straight forward task suggesting that it took a lot of re-thinking and re-developing of both the people involved and the office space they used. He further spoke of the 5 challenges that were faced in order to allow this type of re-organisation to work. Them being:

• The re-design of the IT targeting operating model
• Introducing a discipline framework for Agile
• Re-configuring office practices and environments
• Simplifying key processes
• Developing governance and metric.

As well as discussing DevOps and Agile with The Economic Times, Ganesh also spoke of the key to a company’s development is to accept and welcome a diverse range of workers from all backgrounds.

“Diversity is more than gender for us at HTI, and we are increasingly focusing on differently-abled, and LGBT+ persons. These measures include ensuring accessibility of our centres for differently-abled associates, to Pride month celebration in 2019, bolstered by awareness and sensitization sessions.”