How TCS Changed Back-End Systems Overnight Post Demonetization

On 8^th of November 2016 late in the evening, 10 executives at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) got on a conference call to discuss the best possible measures they can adopt to ensure their banking customers will be able to comply with the PM’s demonetization announcement.

TCS (TCS share price closed at Rs 2,221.85 on NSE on 2nd December 2016), which has big shots like RBI, the State Bank of India (SBI) and a host of financial institutions as its customers, had to take the best possible measures to try and smooth the inevitable bumps that could occur when over 80 per cent of a country’s currency loses its validity almost overnight.

According to Ravi Viswanathan, the president of TCS’ Growth Markets business, the first thing we did on the conference call was to make a list of the five priorities that tops the list that had to go into work right away. As a result the company had to put some work they were doing with the banks on hold, to make everyone focus on changing the back-end systems to put in things like withdrawal limits.

Viswanathan also added that changes like putting in limits on the withdrawal amount were done in such a way that they could be modified with minimal possible additional effort going forward. But new policy changes required additional effort to alter the existing banking systems.

Viswanathan said that making it configurable has helped because the withdrawal amounts have changed a few times over the past few weeks. But when the government announced the marriage withdrawal limit, it required more effort because that change was not configurable.

TCS also had to reconfigure the machines carried by banking correspondents, who work in interior villages unserved by permanent bank branches. The company is also working with some of the clients on ‘queuebusting’ solutions to ease the long waits to withdrawal of money for customers. TCS has had to bring in about 100 additional employees into its banking projects to institute the changes; it also refocused existing banking employees who were working on less urgent projects. He said that the company had clocked around 1,000 person days of work in just the first 10 to 15 days since demonetization was announced. TCS is not alone in needing extra help to manage demonetization. Bank employees have also worked late nights and weekends and, in some of the cases, retired workers have been brought back to manage the rush of the work.

To make it easier for the bank heads to understand how much money was flowing into their accounts as well as how much was leaving, the company created a mobile app that pulled in the data from the core-banking systems.

Demonetization has brought about a lot of change in the banking and financial sector and the unsung heroes of the country have made it their duty to cope up with the pressure.