BKCP in Belgium selects FinArch to redesign its full finance, risk and reporting architecture

Brussels – Ghent. January 25 2010. Financial Architects nv (FinArch) today announced that BKCP in Belgium, part of Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe, selected Financial Studio to address its full finance, risk and reporting requirements.

In order to better streamline all of its operations, to reduce its recurring costs and to support its growth, BKCP, part of Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe, investigated the full landscape of available solutions. After a thorough analysis, FinArch’s Finance Resource Planning (FRP) platform with Financial Studio emerged as the best solution for BKCP to rebuild its entire finance, risk and reporting infrastructure. The business case evidenced that Financial Studio with its integrated platform and common data model was clearly the most comprehensive solution to run the bank. Once more, this demonstrates that Financial Studio is thé answer for banks that consider moving to an integrated platform to support their finance functions.

BKCP estimates that only FinArch is able to support the bank’s ambitious business plan to grow its market share.  In this fast moving banking environment, one of the key requirements is to analyse swiftly profitability across all business units, client segments and product portfolios. Financial Studio’s MIS, building upon a common single data platform, is the productivity tool that will allow the bank to do so.

Yves Van der Beken, Chief Information Officer at BKCP, says: “At BKCP, we want to monitor constantly and adapt our business when and where needed. Therefore, we investigated thoroughly the market to find a solution with the richest possible functionality. Furthermore, we were also conscious to make an economical choice. FinArch’s integrated platform is the best guarantee that we can leverage on our investment. Functionally, we discovered that Financial Studio offers deep functionality for our current needs and it gives us the confidence that the system will also support our future requirements.”

Siegfried Van Puyvelde, Customer Relationship Director at FinArch, states: “Banks that are successful in the current challenging market conditions are so because they have taken a strategic view on the business that sets them aside of their competition. One of these strategic directions to manage the business proactively is the need for a fully integrated finance and risk platform. Financial Studio is the only solution specifically designed for the financial services industry in this market that does this. We are obviously pleased that more and more banks such as BKCP are convinced of this.” “We’re excited about this new long term partnership with BKCP, and are happy to help them to the next level. With Financial Studio, now fully web based, BKCP has the foundations of an overall strategic platform on which, as they expand, easily more solutions can be implemented in a modular fashion to achieve their growth ambitions,” Van Puyvelde adds.

Financial Studio is the first fully integrated Finance Resource Planning (FRP) solution for banking and financial institutions. Financial Studio’s ‘out-of-the-box’ functionality, with its highly customisable modules and scalable database, allows for rapid deployment of any sized project, from small local implementations to full-scale enterprise-wide solutions on a global basis. A suite of generic, or foundation, modules underpin the power and security of the Financial Studio FRP solution. These include an industry standard data model, highly flexible multi-dimensional reporting hierarchies, powerful archiving tools, audit trail and historical information management, and rule-based engines.

Based on an open architecture, FinArch’s solutions allow for easily integrating with any existing banking IT systems, while easing the burden of regulatory reporting as it complies with the reporting requirements of central banks and monetary authorities all over the world. FinArch has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as one of the leaders in the Magic Quadrant for Basel II software applications. Chartis Research ranked FinArch as the winner of the ‘Risk and Finance Integration’ category in their annual report RiskTech100TM (2009).

About BKCP
The banking group BKCP, with head offices located in Brussels, operates in Belgium through a network of 43 branches and 27 Independent agents. BKCP provides top-quality banking services at competitive prices, such as daily banking operations, savings and investment products, life insurances and business loans.  BKCP ‘s customers are private individuals who want an optimal return for their funds as well as self-employed, learned trades and SME’s.

BKCP’ s main objective is to facilitate its customers’ daily cash management. BKCP also offers flexible solutions to finance private and professional projects.
BKCP is a subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe (group CM-CIC), the fifth largest bank in France.

Today it has over 100 000 customers and 350 employees in Belgium.

www.bkcp.be

About FinArch
FinArch (Financial Architects nv), with offices in the major financial centers worldwide, is a global value leader in providing a new generation of financial management software. With its highly customisable modules and scalable database, Financial Studio brings together in a single application environment the tools banks need to manage, measure, and report all their financial activities. The integrated approach of the different modules (IAS/IFRS, Liquidity Risk, ALM, Basel II, E-Cap, Compliance…) guarantee economies of scale and ease of implementation. Chartis Research ranked FinArch as the winner of the ‘Risk and Finance Integration’ category in their annual report RiskTech100TM (2009).

FinArch provides a unique blend of domain expertise, operational services, and technology solutions that accelerate and facilitate financial institutions’ ambition to implement a cost effective and reliable financial management platform.

www.finarch.com
www.ifrsforbanks.com

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