It wasn't so long ago that a one-man outfit was founded in 1983 with the aim of developing innovative software for the banking industry. Today, System Access is a recognised pioneer in the financial software solutions industry and a leading provider of universal banking software solutions for financial services institutions worldwide.
As an infocomm local enterprise (iLE) headquartered in Singapore, System Access boldly took its spirit of innovation into the high-stakes world of international financial services. SYMBOLS, its flagship product, is an award-winning banking solution with over 30 modules designed to meet the needs of universal banks.
"SYMBOLS has been ranked amongst the world's leading top 10 Universal Banking Software products by IBS Journal UK for several years," said Leslie Loh, founder and CEO of System Access. "Over the last decade we have focused our distribution activities in the emerging and developing banking markets and have successfully distributed our product to more than 150 banks over 40 countries across Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa."
Loh said the company's rewarding emphasis on R&D was partially made possible through the product development assistance scheme supported by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and Economic Development Board (EDB).
Having achieved a position to compete on a global basis, System Access looked to set up a global "partners ecosystem" to support the global distribution of products and services. "As a smaller company, we need to leverage on bigger multinational players' brand name support and distribution network," said Loh.
To this end, System Access joined the Overseas Development Programme (ODP) which is a key platform to create win-win partnerships between Singapore-based Infocomm Local Enterprises (iLEs) and leading Singapore companies or MNCs to prepare iLEs to compete globally. The company was approached by Sun Microsystems to become one of Sun's ODP partners.
The partnership was instrumental in allowing System Access to clinch a major project with the China Development Bank (CDB). "Under Sun's ODP programme, we were introduced to Digital China, one of the largest system integrator in China," said Loh. "Digital China, Sun Microsystems and System Access subsequently won a joint bid to offer an integrated core banking solution to CDB. The tripartite partnership resulted in the successful installation of the first Unix-based international core banking solution to a top tier bank in China."
The partnership strategy has proven so effective that System Access now has partnership arrangements with many MNCs, including Oracle, HP, IBM, BEA, UNISYS, Satyam and other large regional system integrators. This enhanced distribution network enables the company to jointly reach out to an even broader market segment.