Orandian Maps Out Strategies to Enhance Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets

Raheem Akingbolu

Financial institutions in the emerging Markets across the world can successfully weather the storm of their operations and record growth if the right tools are made available, the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Orandian, Antonio Separovic, has stated.

Separovic, who led a conversation at a media parley in Lagos recently, as part of the ’Oradian Core Banking Summit: The Future Is Now’, reeled out the company’s mission to transform financial inclusion across Africa and Southeast Asia.

Though the CEO admitted that the place of technology in the financial sector cannot be undermined, he pointed out that having the right technology on its own doesn’t automatically mean that everything is fixed, adding that the right technology is one of the enablers of financial inclusion.

To this end, he pointed out that the foundation of financial inclusion lies in providing the right tools that empower individuals and communities while enabling financial institutions to thrive.

“If you have the right technology in place and you have the right team in place, then you create magic, that’s really important. At Orandian, we believe that if we give the right tools to the right types of financial institutions, they can actually have fantastic growth.”

According to him, a good financial inclusion regime would enable individuals and businesses to have access to financial products and services like savings, loans, easy payment systems and insurance.

To enable financial institutions to work better and grow, he said Oradian, a global core banking platform SaaS provider has created innovative banking software which assists to solve problems that are from the ground up.

The CEO, who stated that Oradian focuses on emerging markets, said the company has over 55 financial institutions – banks, microfinance, digital banks, all in 13 different countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, with a deep understanding of what the targeted financial institutions needed.

According to him, being a cloud system means that “we provide the software as well as the infrastructure. As a bank, all you need is an Internet connection to be able to use this tool.

“This tool enables financial institutions to keep track of their clients, keep track of loans, deposits, do reporting and assist in the end of day process. Basically it’s the operating system of a bank. We have all the modules that you need to be able to run and operate the bank. The entire infrastructure, the back end, the servers, the hosting, data recovery, all of this is part of the service. Again all packaged under one subscription”.

On partnerships for effective operations, he said as a financial institution “you cannot work by yourself. What you need to do is work with others, integrate with others. And this is where the architecture is amazing that through APIs it’s very easy to integrate with other services”.

Antonio who said he sees a change of how banks think about technology said the next phase for Oradian is to on-board tier two banks and tier one banks. According to him, the change of how banks think about technology “requires strong leadership because you can either choose to be a technology company or you can choose to be a bank. Being both is very difficult”.

On what appears to be carefulness over frauds or fear by some banks to outsource certain services, Antonio instead linked it to ‘attitude’, saying that some banks want to own everything and do everything by themselves which limits how they grow. “So what we see is why fintechs are stronger than banks in certain areas, moving fast”.

The Summit attended by representatives of banks and fintech companies provided a first-hand look at Oradian’s roadmap and showcased ground-breaking innovations, including Oradian Custom Code, aimed at empowering financial institutions to scale and innovate fast, securely, and efficiently in ways that traditional systems cannot offer.

While speaking on features that single out Oradian in the market, he pointed out that the company’s commitment to innovation remains an edge. According to him, the company operates on a single source code—a decision that he said is critical to ensuring agility and continuous improvement.

“What makes Oradian fantastic is that we only have one source code. All our customers are using the same code, which is important for innovation. We can constantly innovate without managing multiple versions,” he explained.