The Brazilian bank Banco Bradesco and BKCP Bank from Belgium have outsourced their IT hosting to Clearstreams IT Hosting and Managed Services.
Clearstream Services will run the IT infrastructure for the private banking application hub for Banco Bradesco outside the Americas, with supporting services provided by Real Solutions. For BCKP Bank, the entire IT infrastructure will be supported by Clearstream Services, including the IT office infrastructure within the banks branches. All services will be hosted in Luxembourg.
Clearstreams IT hosting and managed services offering originated through parent Deutsche Brse, which offers these services as an IT services component within trading services. Following the acquisition of Clearstream in 2002, the group extended these services to clients back offices in the post trade arena.
The IT hosting and managed services business has seen increasing momentum as financial institutions look to cut their costs, prompting an interest in outsourcing those costs associated with investing significant amounts of time and money in the construction and management of IT infrastructure. Clearstream Services now has 20 customers in its external IT business, with the BKCP Bank and Banco Bradesco being the latest to sign in March and September respectively.
With the momentum the business has seen over the last few years, with revenues doubling since the end of 2010, Clearstream Services managing director Yves Baguet said this was the right time to highlight the services and the new clients.
Baguet said: IT outsourcing models need to cover the whole end-to-end outsourcing value chain: infrastructure, functional application and finally business operations. We have great experience and expertise in delivering the entire value chain, and are delighted that Banco Bradesco and BKCP Bank have recognized our delivery capabilities.
Baguet added that the last component of the services value chain, BPO would be offered in the coming years.
Software provider Real Solutions has partnered with Clearstream to allow a successful implementation of Banco Bradescos European hub.
Bradesco wanted to establish a European hub for expansion outside of the Americas, said Baguet. They went for the partnership with Real Software and us to provide the back office services.
Alain Meulemans, technical director of Real Solutions, said: Real Solutions has partnered with Clearstream to allow a successful implementation of Banco Bradescos European hub. Clearstream provides the data centers, the operations and monitoring as well as the network communication through the Deutsche Brse Group backbone. Real Solutions supports in the project management as well as the relationship management between all the involved parties. The complementary nature of the teams were the major factors for the success of the project.
The Bradesco partnership compliments the banks existing partnership with Oracle, where it uses the software providers FLEXCUBE solution for services in its home market.
The infrastructure for the Bradesco deal was up and running in mid-November. The full platform, including the software, will go live in mid-2012.
BKCP, a subsidiary of the French banking group, went live with their entire back office on Clearstreams platform in June 2011, with Paladyne providing their software.
Yves van der Beken, chief information Officer of BKCP Bank, said: IT outsourcing is not only a model of cost control, but also a way of accessing higher expertise, a highly available and secured infrastructure and to access large number of managed services around IT Infrastructure. Founding a partnership such as the one with Clearstream Services permits BKCP to concentrate on its core business, which is retail banking.
The next customer anticipated for Clearstreams IT hosting and managed services is a UK based financial institution with an international reach.
(JDC)