UFG-LFP Private Bank provides private banking services in Luxembourg. Its trades include asset management, portfolio management, mutual funds management, and financial advice. The company, formerly known as Nord Europe Private Bank (NEPB) had changed its name to UFG-LFP Private Bank in October 2010. It is based in Luxembourg and operates as a subsidiary of CréditMutuel Nord Europe.
Prior to changing its name the bank decided to change its core systems provider because of the need to supply increasingly personalised services to its private- banking clients. The existing provider 'was not ready to follow us in the developments we needed to answer the needs of our customers,' according to Bernard de Thomaz, chairman of the board.
Selection
From the beginning, the bank decided to look for a packaged solution – preferably on an outsourced ASP (Application Service Provider) or SaaS (Software as a Service) basis. 'We consider the bank's role is not to make work for IT, but to provide a good service to our customers, so we were looking to buy systems from outside of the bank,' said de Thomaz. Another reason the bank was keen on an outside supplier was that the bank is a small and personal one, so although its range of services is fairly limited (focused solely on private banking), they are sophisticated and the depth of service needs to be extensive. The bank felt that by using an outside supplier which covered a broad market it would have the benefit of a broader solution. 'They have more experience of resolving banking problems – more cases to solve and a wider range of countries than just ours – so we feel that it's more appropriate to go to a bigger, outside supplier for our solution,' thought de Thomaz.
