Watch: CRISIL CIO on the credit ratings agency’s pivot to microservices

Mumbai headquartered credit rating agency CRISIL (Credit Information Services of India), over the past year,  has increased bets on microservices and made strategic acquisitions to accelerate its business plans. 

In an interview with TechCircle, chief information officer Ramesh Lakshminarayanan explains how decoupling from monolithic platforms has helped CRISIL become more nimble -- tasks that were completed in a year now take 4-5 months.

As the CIO of CRISIL, a company whose 90% of processes are data driven, Lakshminarayanan is tasked with applying the right tools and technologies to make the most out of the data that the credit rating agency collects and analyses.

“CRISIL is now a kind of a conglomerate of about five to six business units naturally looking at data,” Lakshminarayanan told TechCircle.

“Whether it is benchmark analytics, ratings analytics, or research analytics, the data sits at the centre,” he added.

Incorporated in 1987, the company provides advisory risk based modelling, benchmark analytics, research among other services. 

The CIO delved into how recent acquisitions have helped the company better its data game. He also spoke about an upcoming portal, which is built to help clients analyze market data and also generate custom reports.

An industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) technology domain, Lakshminarayanan started his career with CitiBank. He was also a founding member of the world’s first remote bank, Suvidha by Citibank India in the late 90s.

Lakshminarayanan co-founded Pragmatix in 2010, a business intelligence and analytics startup for the BFSI domain. CRISIL bought Pragmatix in April 2018.