The banking arm of Zurich Financial Services Group is in
the process of replacing its core legacy banking systems with a
modular software system.
The Zurich Banking business unit said it hoped to reduce its
costs considerably by improving the efficiency of its processes,
cutting duplication and using straight-through-processing -
handling stock transactions electronically from beginning to end
without manual intervention.
The company will complete the migration this September, said
Patrick Lindley, head of operations at Zurich Banking. It began the
project in February 2005.
The company is adopting Infosys Technologies' Finacle across
three banking brands - Zurich Bank, Dunbar Bank and Zurich Bank
International - in the UK, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
The modular system includes core banking, wealth management, and
consumer and corporate e-banking elements, as well as mobile
banking, alerts and web-based management. It also offers the
ability to define and track service level agreements.
Lindley said the main issue for Zurich Banking would be to
ensure that Finacle's specification meets its current and future
business, accounting and regulatory needs.
"Having a more flexible system that can better integrate with
our accounting systems will allow us to develop our client
propositions and maximise our efficiency," he said.
Parent company Zurich Financial Services Group outsources most
of its technology systems to CSC, IBM and Equant. However, in July
2004, CIO Michael Paravicini said the company would retain control
of its business-critical systems in-house.
Zurich Banking is running Clustered Sun V490 servers running
Solaris 9 with an Oracle 9i database.