SG Hambros's central line
Jan 2009 / IBS Magazine Dec/Jan issue
|
Since being acquired by Société Générale, the business of what was Hambros has had a complete system overhaul centred on solutions from ERI, Touchstone and Odyssey, on a centralised basis A centralised systems architecture is vital for efficient operations. The benefits of well connected systems, such as automated processes and STP, can prove to be a major advantage in troubled times. Whether it’s the back office reporting systems or the front office portfolio management software, having a good set of integrated systems is critical. One private bank that has achieved this is UK-based SG Hambros. SG Hambros is part of SG Private Banking, the private banking arm of Société Générale. The French banking giant acquired Hambros in 1998, and set about integrating it into the group’s operations. It has offices in the UK mainland, as well as the Channel Islands, Gibraltar and the Bahamas. Since the acquisition there has been a complete systems refresh at the bank. When the acquisition was made, the investment management side of the business was outsourced to a SocGen-owned stockbroker. This was brought in-house and new systems were selected to manage the operations. The bank now uses three main systems to run its activities. On the core banking side it uses ERI’s Olympic, for trust services it has Touchstone’s Navision, and the system in place for investment management is Triple’A Plus from Odyssey Financial Technologies. On top of these it has other satellite systems for areas such as management information and reconciliations. The main touch-point between the three key systems is with Olympic and Triple’A. This means that one of the most important aspects for the project was to integrate the front and back office systems. ‘In early 2000 a global survey was carried out to choose the private banking standard system for investment management [for the SG Private Banking Group],’ explains Jean-Pierre Flais, deputy CEO of the bank. ‘We also did a bit of an in-house search, but that survey was understandably led by SG Paris as the view was to have a common system across the SG Private Banking group.’ The result of this search was the selection of Triple’A as a group-wide solution. The implementation of Triple’A began in 2001 and the system went live in the summer of 2003. Flais feels that having a common system has brought benefits to SG Hambros. He believes that one of the main benefits have been the technical features of the system. ‘The portfolio management functionality, the automated rebalancing of portfolios against strategies, performance analysis against benchmarks are obviously key and a prerequisite.
|
|
Please download the PDF |
|
Contact |
|
| Kristine Solf Tel. +352 42 60 80 1 |
|