some of the reduced scope of Equation. It has provided much improved transparency and has eased the task of adapting to new regulations by creating a single data repository.
One year on, phase one of the reconciliation project had also been completed. Foster said this had brought tangible benefits from improved STP. 'From trade input to the payment going out the door, no one needs to eyeball the trade unless we decide we want to do so.' This was one of the last large pieces of the overall project.
The other area that was outstanding – confirmations – took some time to address. 'It was important that we ensured that the payments going out of the bank were water-tight,' said Foster. There was a lot of testing, some overrun, but it meant the go-live of this portion was a 'non-event'. The whole process of booking a trade, processing it, producing payments and confirmations and posting to the general ledger was now excellent, he said.
The bank has clearly been busy. In parallel, EAB was implementing Path Solutions' iMAL for its Islamic finance activities, going live with this in August 2008 to support its Shari'ah window (see the EAB/Path Solutions case study). The implementation of Findur itself was clearly not without challenges and lessons but EAB made it in the end and appears to be reaping the benefits of a more flexible and expandable system, across front and back office.
