payment system, Swift. The bank was willing to consider further outsourcing opportunities and as a result it outsourced its regulatory reporting function 'which was becoming a burden' according to de Thomaz.
The implementation was not the end of the technology changes at UFG-LFP Private Bank. The bank also implemented an internet-based customer access system that went live at the end of 2008. This is an area that is strictly regulated in Luxembourg with a special regard to customer confidentiality. In light of data thefts that have occurred in private banks in other countries one might think that the bank may have had concerns regarding security and bank secrecy when it considered using outsourced service providers. But confidentiality is most closely guarded at UFG-LFP. 'The confidential data is not linked to the computerised systems,' pointed out de Thomaz. 'There is another system that is completely independent, which permits us, whenever the need arises, to connect the number of the account to the client's name. So there is no possibility of knowing the name behind the number.We are audited very strictly every year by the external auditors in that field.'
Post live
The bank believes in maintaining good relations with its providers and devotes a lot of time to this.
'It is a collaboration.We feel that it is impossible to have a good solution in place if you consider your provider as external, not as a collaborator. I think this is the new way of banking,' believed de Thomaz.
It was his opinion that banks would outsource more and more of their internal processing functions to remain focused on only one thing – 'the relationship with the customers: this is our job. I think this is the way of tomorrow.'
