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Belgium 6-11-25 Invitation Only Physical english

CIONET Round Table: Securing Your Digital Crown Jewels

The modern cyber threat landscape has evolved from simple data breaches to sophisticated, systemic attacks designed to cripple an entire organisation. Ransomware, in particular, has made traditional backup and recovery strategies insufficient, as attackers often compromise backups before launching their main assault. In this new reality, the question is no longer "if" an attack will happen, but "when” and how quickly you can recover. Furthermore, regulations like DORA and NIS2 are making robust recovery a legal imperative, compelling businesses to adopt solutions that can guarantee data integrity and business continuity even after a catastrophic cyber event, making a Cybervault a critical component of regulatory compliance.

Belgium 13-11-25 Country Members Physical english

The New CISO - CIONET Belgium: Community Event

The Role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) The role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is no longer confined to securing the network perimeter. As organisations become more digitally connected and data-driven, the CISO’s responsibilities have expanded far beyond traditional security measures. Today’s CISO must not only defend against cyber threats but also enable the business to innovate securely, manage complex regulatory environments, and instill a culture of trust across the organisation. This event will explore the evolving role of the CISO as a strategic leader who balances security with business enablement. As digital transformation accelerates, how can CISOs align their security strategies with organisational goals, ensure compliance, and lead their teams in the fight against increasingly sophisticated threats? Key Discussion Points: From Gatekeeper to Strategic Partner: How CISOs can shift from being seen as barriers to innovation to becoming key enablers of business agility and transformation through security. Balancing Risk and Innovation: Learn how top CISOs navigate the delicate balance between mitigating risk and supporting the organisation’s need to innovate and scale in a secure environment. Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Explore how CISOs are managing an increasingly complex regulatory landscape, ensuring compliance while still driving business objectives forward. Building a Security-First Culture: Practical strategies for CISOs to foster a culture where security is embedded into every part of the business, from boardroom discussions to frontline operations. CISO as Crisis Manager: How to prepare for and lead your organisation through major cybersecurity incidents. From ransomware attacks to data breaches, we’ll discuss how today’s CISO is as much a crisis manager as they are a strategist. Why You Should Attend: As a CISO, your role is evolving faster than ever before. This event is designed to provide you with actionable insights into how to embrace your expanded responsibilities while keeping your organisation safe and secure. Whether you’re focused on aligning security with business goals, navigating regulatory challenges, or leading in times of crisis, this event will equip you with the strategies to lead the next era of cybersecurity.

Belgium 18-11-25 Squad Only Physical english

Business Process Driven Architecture ; Designing systems that follow how your organisation actually works

Too often, architecture is drawn top-down, neat boxes, elegant flows, and little connection to the way teams really work. But what if we flipped it? What if our systems evolved from the actual processes, pains, and needs that drive the business? If you’re tired of systems that look good on slides but frustrate in practice, this session will ground the conversation where value is created, at the process level.

November 4, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

From Backlog to Value ; Prioritising what matters when everything feels urgent

You’ve got a roadmap, a backlog, and a lot of pressure. Every team wants their feature. Every stakeholder claims urgency. And your developers? They just want to deliver something meaningful. But how do you prioritise in a way that serves the business, and keeps the team sane? If your backlog keeps growing and your outcomes stay flat, this session helps you turn intent into value, without losing control.

November 18, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

Business Process Driven Architecture ; Designing systems that follow how your organisation actually works

November 20, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

Data Spaces and Digital Trust ; What it takes to collaborate safely across ecosystems

You can’t build a smart service without smart data. And you can’t access smart data without trust. Across Europe, industries are trying to make this work, through data spaces, standardisation, and new governance frameworks. But progress is slow. If you’re part of a sector with potential for shared intelligence, but stuck in silos, this session will challenge assumptions and explore practical pathways.

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Banco Santander Consumer Portugal Adopts the OutSystems Platform

Banco Santander Consumer Portugal selected OutSystems to power its ambitious digital transformation program in 2017. Working with OutSystems partner KPMG, the bank had replaced 70% of its core systems by the beginning of 2020. With a new agile IT architecture, the bank is now able to innovate at speed, to launch new channels and solutions.

“The OutSystems development approach has greatly contributed to the success of the program. It has improved our agile practices and helped us involve business users in a much more responsive way.” - Domingos FerreiraIT & Operations Director, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal

Challenge

Struggling to Adapt to a Rapidly Changing Market

Banco Santander Consumer Portugal, part of Santander Group, a top-10 global financial services group, provides credit solutions to consumers both directly and via leading consumer goods and automotive partners. In Portugal, Santander Consumer financed loans totaling 465 million Euros in 2018.

Santander Consumer was struggling to adapt to a fast-changing market. Successive mergers and acquisitions had led to a complex IT architecture, which added cost and delays to every IT related improvement or innovation.

Santander Consumer faced increasing competition, and the bank's business strategy was to diversify and become a major player in the consumer loan and insurance markets.

The bank's leadership realized that it needed to escape the inertia imposed by its hard-to-change legacy IT, to speed-up the launch of new products, services, and digital experiences.

"Working with OutSystems and KPMG, we have built a new IT architecture, replaced 70% of our core systems, and streamlined our operations. We are now executing the business vision and delivering new digital channels and solutions to lead in the consumer finance market.” - Domingos FerreiraIT & Operations Director, Banco Santander Consumer Portugal

Why Santander Consumer chose OutSystems:

Speed-up development and improve agility
No lock-in, open standards-based platform
Powerful integration

Solution

An OutSystems Powered Digital Transformation

In 2016, Santander Consumer put together a company-wide task-force to digitally transform every aspect of the business, including products, processes, channels, compliance, and IT. KPMG were appointed to help deliver the transformation program between 2017 to 2019.

Following an extensive evaluation, OutSystems was selected as the low-code application development platform to refresh the bank’s technology. Key selection criteria included:

Fit for agile development practices
Support for API integration and microservices
Ease and speed of development
No lock-in, or development limits

Santander Consumer’s Management was also impressed that the OutSystems team quickly grasped the full extent of the proposed wide-ranging transformation program.

The digital transformation required a new, agile IT architecture to replace many of Santander Consumer’s 20-year old systems. Fundamental to this was the creation of an enterprise service bus, a new business process management layer, and new channels for all product stakeholders. All of these were to be developed on the OutSystems platform.

The new architecture enables fast and flexible development and maximizes the reuse of code across multiple products and channels. The bank is now able to quickly digitalize processes and streamline operations so that it can launch new products and channels in a much more efficient way.

These improvements and innovations are transforming the way that the bank operates and engages with partners and customers.

The “NeXt Future” program includes 47 distinct initiatives and 14 new solutions, developed in three years by an internal team of around 20 people, from IT, operations, and various business departments, and up to 40 people from KPMG.

Many reusable components have already transitioned to the new architecture, including:

A new end-to-end digital process for the onboarding of all products
User and access authentication
Communications and services gateway
Workflow services (for processes such as collections and fraud prevention)

In late 2018, the first solutions went live for consumer credit and personal loans, which are high priority growth targets for Santander Consumer. Other solutions built with OutSystems that are already in production include:

eCommerce – offering consumer credit products as a payment option in partner’s eCommerce portals
Digital cash loans – a consumer credit solution to provide personal credit
Complaint management solution
New durables dealer’s portal – a B2B digital solution that supports business acquisition through dealer networks (from simulation to payment).
New used car portal - A B2B solution that is helping the bank grow rapidly in this increasingly important business sector.

Santander Consumer has also built a new portal for auto dealers that, at the time of writing, is about to go live. This comprehensive solution will significantly simplify and improve the onboarding experience for auto dealers and their customers by enabling document upload and real-time status updates throughout the process.

The bank is also about to launch new fully-integrated solutions for credit recovery and associated litigation.

Partner

KPMG Advisory - Consultores de Gestão, S.A.

KPMG is one of the world's leading professional services firms. We are proud of our firm's strong and established reputation, a reputation that is built on a long history of independence, integrity...

Learn more about KPMG Advisory - Consultores de Gestão, S.A.

Results

Streamlined Operations That Improve the Customer Experience

By the beginning of 2020, Santander had replaced 70% of the processes that were in its legacy core systems. As Domingos Ferreira, IT & Operations Director, puts it, “In just three years, we have replaced and improved a technology architecture that took us 20 years to develop.”

However, technology change is not, in itself, the end-goal. The real achievement is the new-found agility that allows the bank to quickly launch new propositions to market, with streamlined, digitally-optimized processes, and significantly improved customer experience.

Moreover, higher customer satisfaction scores confirm that improved customer experiences are making a difference.

“The OutSystems development approach has greatly contributed to the success of the program,” says Domingos. “It has improved our agile practices and helped us involve business users in a much more responsive way.”

Cultural change goes hand-in-hand with Santander Consumer’s digital transformation, as the bank adopts a more customer-centric, agile approach to develop and deliver the products and experiences its partners and users need.

In summary, here are just a few of the achievements delivered over the three-year program:

Omnichannel solutions from simulation to payment
Front-end mobile-first and fully responsive digital experiences
Digital “Know Your Customer,” authentication and document signature
Integration with business partners via APIs
Single end-customer home banking
Digital assets shared across all products, channels, and partners
Established a modern, agile architecture that supports rapid innovation and lower cost of maintenance.

Technologies

Outsystems

CIONET Business Circles

Healthcare Circle

Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?

Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.

Les Rencontres

Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !

Female Leadership Circle

CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.