IBM has announced details of several major deals in the financial services industry as part of a move by banks to improve operational efficiency and benefit from recent advances in mobile and Internet technologies by leveraging Power Systems technology.
The agreements from across Central and Eastern Europe, and with a combined value of over $130 million are part of a broader trend of similar deals that IBM has signed with banks across growth markets in recent months. The banks include Sberbank in Russia, PKO Bank Polski in Poland, Erste & Steiermarkische Bank in Croatia, PRAVEX-BANK in Ukraine, Garanti Bank in Turkey, JSC Rietumu Banka in Latvia, Societe Generale in Serbia, NovaLjubljanska Banka in Slovenia, and Raiffeisen Bank in Romania and Czech Republic.
IBM will provide new hardware, software, and services to support efforts by the banks to modernize their core banking systems to prepare for growth, increase efficiencies, and take advantage of new market opportunities–both at home and abroad. Here are just a few examples of what IBM's doing:
In Russia, IBM has helped to design and launch a new software architecture for the country's largest lender, Sberbank, to integrate the bank's IT infrastructure. The new system enables faster decision-making and more efficient management of financial data helping to improve customer service, unify service delivery through different channels and reduce credit risk. The total value of the contract via selected business partners is in the region of $25 million. The solution--based on more than 20 IBM Power servers--enables Sberbank to integrate more than 80 different systems across all Russian regions covering nine time zones. The flexibility of the system allows IT specialists of Sberbank and IBM's partners to constantly upgrade the system in line with business needs.
In Croatia, Erste & Steiermarkische Bank (Erste Bank), the third largest bank in the country, successfully migrated its core banking system to IBM technologies to reduce maintenance costs and ease the development of new financial services. With the new system, Erste Bank has successfully lowered the time needed for batch processes and significantly improved the performance of online processes as compared to the previous Unysis system.
In Ukraine, IBM has signed a five-year agreement with PRAVEX-BANK to provide technology and facility management services for a new data center based in Kiev. The new system will enable PRAVEX-BANK to automate its banking processes, improve service for over a million customers in the country and support the rollout of online and mobile banking services. The bank is one of the first in Ukraine to comply with the National Bank of Ukraine's (NBU) directive for banks to host customer data within Ukraine and ensure the highest levels of business continuity on the market.
For more information on IBM Smarter Banking, visit: ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/banking_technology/ideas.