REGIONAL FOCUS
Consensus needed
Reporting required
Welcome effects
Prof Hing Flexcube and the
ublin service centre
forget that for many employees the
system is a main part of the work.
T he pain has been particularly feit in
the area of reporting where it is taking
quite a lot of time and effort to get
us back to the level we had reached
with the old systems. While a lot has
been done, a lot still remains to be
done. However, we're confident that
the technology and future function-
ality of Flexcube offers far greater
potential and much higher standards
than the old systems.' The aggressive
implementation time frame was de-
liberate, because only when installed
in all of the local branches do the
requirements for future improve-
ments to the system become clear
and prioritized and the intended
benefits realized.
The end of tliis current phase of
implementation is the beginning of
a much lengthier process of making
improvements to the system. 'Flex-
cuhc belongs to the users. It's for
thern to decide what improvements
are needed. It's their responsibility,
including its costs. At head office
level, we facilitate,' says Kaan.
A user group has been created to
steer Flexcube's development. The
user group discusses procedures,
tests, expectations and costs in
consultation with the supplier. 'It
is a balancing act to be flexible and
proactive, while still involving as
many users as possible. Different
branches have different priorities
and consensus is necessary. Fortu-
nately, so far, this is happening be
cause people understand the need
to move forward with one central
system. Improvements to the system
mean benefits for all branches.'
During the next phase, the reporting
process has already been flagged for
attention. Fvery branch is required
to report to their country's Central
Bank and also to the Dutch Central
Bank. Internally, reporting from local
offices to Control RI and head office
is also required. Kaan says, 'With
Flexcube providing one central data
base, we can centralize the reporting
as well.' The local controller will be
able to extract all the data for the
local Central Bank reporting, and
centrally we can extract data for
the branches' reports to the Dutch
Central Bank and head office.
One of the principles of using Flex
cube is that the knowledge and ex
pertise of the system will reside with
the users in the local branches.
Therefore local branchés are poised
to experience an increase in respon
sibility and control. Kaan explains
that this will take time to evolve.
However, a more immediate and
equally welcome side effect is evident.
'Communication between branches
has improved,' he says. 'People in
the local branches seem to feel part
of something bigger than just their
local branch. I'd like to pav tribute
to the cooperation I've witnessed
thus far.'
An Indian consultancy company called
Iflex, which was initially part of
Citibank, developed Flexcube. It's an 'off-
the-shelf' system developed specifically
for the banking industry that centralizes
the administrative and accounting func-
tions of local branches and creates one
central database.
In the fourth quarter of 2001implemen
tation of the system architecture and
technology platform was installed in
bondon - piggy-backing on the IT re
sources, facilities and infrastructure already
there. At the same time, a centralized
service centre for administration was
established in Dublin. The decision to
move administration services to Dublin
was based on a number of factors:
Dublin was already supplying adminis-
tration and business support to other
offices in the network so it was possible
to grow these services to cover other
branches without massive investment;
Dublin offered sufficiënt size to realize
economies of scale hut yet was not so
large that the other offices should feel
lost; costs in Dublin compared favourably
to those in other locations.
Says F.elco Kaan, Flexcube Program
Manager, A lot of credit goes to the staff
in Dublin for expanding their service role
in a seamless manner. However, Dublin is
fust one side of the arrangement and the
efforts of the staff in the local offices
should also be recognized. Coming so far
so fast is a real indicator of the coopera
tion and dedication that exists among the
staff across the whole region'.
Although consolidation of RI's adminis
tration and service systems has occurred
in Europe, it's obvious that clients and
cultural, legal and reporting factors
remain quite diverse in the region. For
this reason, and because banking is in-
trinsically a service industry, customer
service remains a very local responsibility.
It's also interesting to note, that the
administration service centre does not
employ factorystyle processing; the
systems there are suitably flexible and
enable customized handling of transac-
tions. The underlying principle is that
local offices concentrate on serving the
customer and Dublin takes care of the
background processing and control that
is transparent to the customer.
The Word I 27
