Sophis says HSH Nordbank, a German bank, has selected RISQUE to support its derivatives business. HSH Nordbank, formed in June 2003 through the merger of the Landesbanken in Kiel and Hamburg, will at first use the system as their equity division’s major platform for Sales, Trading, Risk Management and Back Office operations. After the planned first phase of the implementation, the system will be considered for roll-out into the other major asset classes of the bank’s derivatives business.
For HSH Nordbank this project is a step forward in their strategic plan, following the merger between the two Landesbanken last year. Assisted by a well-accepted risk management system like Sophis RISQUE, the bank’s derivatives team will play a more significant role in enhancing the bank’s earning ratio and in executing a planned innovative funding concept in conjunction with the bank’s rating change after 2005.
“We were looking for a solution that could help us support a very sophisticated derivatives business” says Michael Daiss, one principal at HSH Nordbank’s equity derivatives trading. “Sophis RISQUE offers very broad instrument coverage, which will allow us to deal with all kinds of financial instruments from cash business to exotic products, in all relevant asset classes for our business. With its very flexible Financial Toolkit, the system also provides a comprehensive structuring capacity which is of essential importance for the bank’s very ambitious business plan in the structured products area.”
“Because of the highly strategic meaning of this project, we decided to exercise a comprehensive selection process involving all major vendors” offerings’ adds Tino Mehlmann, the project manager from ORG/IT at HSH Nordbank. “Our evaluation on all relevant aspects of all solutions took more than six months and, from an IT point of view, we opted for Sophis because of their cutting edge complete and scalable architecture and their Straight Through Processing capabilities. The very good performance results shown by Sophis through tests in a benchmark centre also made us confident in terms of the business volume our institution will have. Finally, Sophis proved to be a fully committed and trustworthy partner offering a strong level of service”.
Commenting on this partnership, Herv Vinciguerra, Chairman of Sophis stated that “Sophis is highly committed to the German market and I am very pleased to win a partnership with such an outstanding financial institution as HSH Nordbank. HSH Nordbank is a very dynamic and profitable bank and we hope our system can assist them in moving faster towards achieving their strategic goals”.