IBM has signed agreements with Chiba Bank, Daishi Bank and Hokkoku Bank for the development of a call centre system that will be used by all three Japanese firms.
IBM Japan will begin building the common call centre platform this month. The system will be rolled out to the banks from November 2009 to March 2010.
The vendor says the call centre platform will be based on its hosted 'channel sharing centre service'. By combining system infrastructure for servers and telephone switching devices, the service cuts maintenance costs and improves operational quality.
IBM Japan says this collaborative approach will reduce development costs for each bank.
"Compared to having each bank develop and utilise its own system separately, the collaboration development will not only reduce the development cost per bank, but also achieve the flexibility to manage future system enhancement for new products and services," says IBM in a statement.
The call centre project is a part of a larger initiative to explore system integration possibilities between five Japanese banks - the three involved the call centre project along with Chuugoku Bank and Iyo Bank.