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Major Scandinavian Bank goes live with Optial, in what is believed to be the largest implementation of an Operational Risk Management system worldwide.
Optial is pleased to announce that a major new Optial Operational Risk Management System has gone live in SEB, to support about 20,000 users in 20 countries around the world.
London, England, 6 July 2006: Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), the major Scandinavian international banking group, has gone live with Optial to support the Bank's global Operational Risk Management processes. SEB has deployed the Optial system with a broad functional scope that includes loss database, operational risk self-assessments, key risk indicators, internal control monitoring and policy distribution. Approximately 20,000 SEB staff are using the system across 20 countries in SEB's global enterprise, taking advantage of Optial's multi-language facility to use the system in Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and German as well as Swedish and English.
Philip Winckle, Head of Group Risk Control at SEB said, "Optial has more than delivered on the expectations we had when we selected them from a very long list of alternative suppliers. We have achieved with Optial the transparency we sought in Operational Risk that the Bank already have in the management of Credit and Trading risk. We can now deliver to the board of the Bank a clear understanding of SEB's Operational Risk position; together with details of the mitigation processes and control infrastructure that has been built to address these risks. Using Optial's operational risk management software, SEB are now able to demonstrate clearly to the supervisor that the Bank are successfully meeting the criteria for Basel II AMA recognition".
Lars Hansén, Head of Operational Risk at SEB, agreed, adding, "It was vital to us that we chose a scaleable system that was also flexible enough to match the deep functionality the bank needed to fully reflect our own methodologies across the different divisions and operating units. Optial has met all our expectations through their approach, flexibility, functional richness and 'bank-side' assistance with the implementation to ensure that the project was a resounding success; delivered on schedule and budget so that SEB capture every significant incident and loss event at source. Optial's easy data entry and strong workflow engine has helped us to achieve an ongoing cultural shift to embed recognition of operational risk and associated control processes into the daily work routines of our staff around the world. It is equally important that we, as a management team, can clearly see and understand the Bank's operational risks and what is being done to mitigate and address them. Optial has delivered in all these areas and has proven conclusively, that they have the right technology and expertise that helped SEB to achieve our ambitious objectives in this large scale global implementation".
Chris O'Brien, CEO of Optial, said, "We have been very pleased to work with SEB, to deliver on schedule and budget, what we believe to be the largest implementation of an advanced operational risk management system worldwide. There are a number of key success factors in the project including: strong Bank senior executive support from the start, positioning of the project as part of the overall 'One-SEB' initiative, strong project management and structured involvement of all divisions ofthe Bank, both in the Head Office and operating units around the world. It was good to see the early involvement of technical staff at key points, and above all the strong commitment and focus of all project members to succeed. Ultimately a prime success factor was that the flexible Optial platform was able to meet the bank's diverse requirements and beyond, providing the capability to adapt to changing regulatory and operating conditions with the minimum of effort in the future".
About SEB
The SEB Group is a North European financial group for corporate customers, institutions and private individuals with ten home markets in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and the Ukraine. SEB has 680 branch offices and 5 million customers, of whom approximately 2 million use the internet for their banking transactions. The Group is represented in some 20 countries around the world. As a financial partner for companies, institutions and private individuals, SEB operates within retail and private banking, merchant banking, investment banking, asset management and life insurance.
About Optial
Optial (www.optial.com) has the largest installed blue-chip geographic footprint of any Operational Risk platform: it is deployed across 50 countries by a client base including companies such as IBM and Standard Chartered Bank. It is supported from centres in London, Atlanta and Sydney.
Every firm has a unique business model and corresponding risk profile - even more pronounced for multinational firms operating across several jurisdictions. Optial doesn't try to impose 'one size fits all' processes onto its clients; rather Optial helps their clients build Total Corporate Governance by mapping an organisational structure, operational performance criteria and control processes into an overall risk model, using Optial's workflow capability to change behaviour. Optial then set up an individually-configured implementation to meet specific risk profile, language and jurisdictional reporting requirements, before deploying using zero-footprint browser technology.
The standards-based platform delivers rapid configuration, low-cost deployment and low maintenance with future proofing. Built-in KRI's and Loss Database allow firms to align their system with Basel II requirements, while Web Services interfaces and software developer kit enables simplified integration with other systems such as HR, CRM and MIS for two-way automated data exchange and single sign on.
Press Contact:
Colin Spiller, Business Development, colin.spiller@optial.com, +44 (0) 20 7247 7673
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