Path Solutions, the global leader in Islamic financial services software, has announced the availability of its new technology platform – iMAL 14, built using Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technology with significant functional and technical enhancements to help accelerate time-to-market and reduce maintenance costs.

As the core system modernization remains a compelling priority, Path Solutions has advanced the state-of-the-art in Islamic banking technologies with innovations that no other IT vendor can match.

The new integrated platform unveiled by Path Solutions will give financial institutions a single view of their customers coupled with real-time customer analytics, a complete view of risk, a compelling and interactive channel banking experience and the most advanced reporting tools; all while lowering their IT expenditures through greater process automation.
 
Path Solutions embarked on a phenomenal run of new technology venture aimed at accelerating the pace of financial innovation by giving financial institutions the tools to increase operational efficiencies while offering highly differentiated products and services in a market undergoing significant regulatory, competitive and customer changes.
 
“This breakthrough release was driven by clients’ requirements. From the onset, we have been motivated to make it a great platform for them”, said Grace Saade, VP Product Engineering & Management at Path Solutions.

She continued, “iMAL 14 has been developed using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach providing a cost effective solution, running 24/7 real-time, improving the agility of financial institutions and enabling them to be well equipped for the market challenges of today and tomorrow”.
 
The SOA-based iMAL 14 suite allows faster development time, integrating seamlessly with any core banking system. It is built using MVC (Model–View-Controller) design pattern, allowing a complete physical and logical separation of the presentation, business logic and data access layers, thus supporting different deployment architectures and enabling advanced patch management, which in turn reduces test cycle times for faster time-to-market.
 
iMAL 14 can be dynamically customized without any code changes, enabling financial institutions to quickly respond to market changing conditions and to align with future business initiatives and strategies. The system which resembles a Product Factory, is highly flexible and parameterized, and provides real value in reducing time to market for product introduction.
 
“We have heavily invested in the componentization of both the technical and functional levels“, Saade explained.

“Developed on top of in-house built components, iMAL 14 ensures standardization and quick GUI changes across the different modules. The componentization is also extended to the business level: The application screens are business components, out of which, financial institutions can dynamically recreate new screens and customize them to accelerate technology support for new products. An advanced search engine is also provided for easier and faster data retrieval, and hence ensures improved customer experience. iMAL 14 is built with the end-user in mind, allowing him to customize the interface to his personal preference settings, building his landing page with widgets and embedding his favorite items. Online Context-Sensitive Help is also provided to guarantee a quick and successful initialization phase for new users”, Saade said.

iMAL 14 has strong multilingual capabilities which help in the rapid deployment in any geographical location. A customization utility is also provided for clients willing to change the labels as per their convenience.

For financial institutions looking at cloud services to reduce the cost of their IT infrastructure and day-to-day operations, this much anticipated release of iMAL 14 is delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), a hosted software or cloud-based delivery model. SaaS offers quick, easy access to iMAL core banking system without the need for numerous IT resources and costly software and hardware infrastructure, making it the ideal deployment for financial institutions wishing to secure their future, away from the complicated and cumbersome systems.

“The cloud-based delivery model provides lower upfront costs, rapid deployment and access anytime, anywhere on any device with a web browser”, added Saade.

“Our clients will benefit from open, modern technology to accelerate innovation, greatly increasing the speed and effectiveness with which new products and services are created and launched in the market. This high-uptime operational efficiency enables them to provide superior customer service at a lower total cost of ownership”.

 Path Solutions complements iMAL 14 release with the new web-based iMAL*CRMPlus, based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, providing users with a drill-down capability to the transaction level, in addition to the management of current and prospective customers’ contacts, leads, opportunities and relationships; along with world-class solutions such as iMAL*2Retail, 2Corporate and 2Mobile Portal which are designed for intensive deployment environments that demand scalability and high availability.

These solutions are fully integrated with all iMAL modules and have the flexibility to integrate with other core banking systems through an integration layer, providing a secure hub where customers can safely bank online.

 The company has also introduced new and improved BI and RM solutions, characterized by flexible technical architectures and an expanding data warehouse built on SQL server.

The new technologies are backed up by Analysis Services that leverage in-memory technology and provide interactive exploration of aggregated data, self-service capabilities that empower users with data discovery, analysis and visual exploration, and navigation through SharePoint.

“We’re seeing a major shift in the marketplace, as more and more financial institutions transform themselves to become customer-aligned businesses”, commented Jacob Zachariah Karuvelil, Path Solutions’ EVP – Professional Services & Global Support.

“In our journey to making all our clients partners for life, we are pleased to continue driving an aggressive, growth-oriented business plan, including constant investments in new software technology capabilities to further accelerate their growth, and drive both industry best practice and competitive advantage for them. Upgrades are part of a regular ‘fitness plan’ that provides continuous momentum and agility for financial institutions; Hence we invite our clients to take advantage of iMAL 14 as their core processing engine with this newly available upgrade”.

Path Solutions has built a leadership position by continuously innovating in differentiated, mission-critical software solutions to stay at the forefront of the financial industry.

iMAL Islamic Banking & Investment System is a perfect fit for the vertical markets. With significant architectural renewal through componentization and web deployment, iMAL offers particular appeal to financial institutions willing to take advantage of the flexibility, reliability, scalability and portability that this platform offers.