A really useful comment prompted me to create a quick info graphic that shows where some of the core banking projects are happening in the Pakistan financial services industry (Thanks Junaid). Out of the 25 or so scheduled Commercial/Retail Banks in Pakistan, many are now on global core banking solutions, showing a trend of buying and implementing (with varying success) best of breed solutions that have been proven in other markets.

The trend to implement custom in house solutions seems to be on the downward trend, and these systems are being replaced instead of further upgraded it seems. This is also a natural evolution of the market, where banks want to remain banks and leave the technology to the tech vendors, a good thing for sure. Soneri might still focusing on its own solution, and some Islamic banks have been focused on developing their own solutions but to be fair, Islamic Banking is a niche with very different requirements from a conventional bank. The next step for these banks would be to also start buying local, strong solutions for specific verticals such as treasury and trading instead of trying to build these complex systems in house…

You can click here for a bigger version.