'It has been a long journey,' summed up Pessoa. The next leg of the project – derivatives – is starting in 2012 and is expected to last a year. This stage encompasses credit default swaps, interest-rate swaps and FX options.
'Even though it is not easy to work with, Calypso is a strong solution,' said Pessoa. It has been well-accepted by the end-users, he added, as it doesn't have the limitations of its predecessor and has made their day-to-day life easier.
Some changes were introduced to the project team to ease their burden. The long-standing core team was given a rest and replaced by fresh members. The functional team was particularly stretched, as it had to develop new functionality and at the same time assist users with their everyday work, said Dias. 'This was a challenge.' To address it, a separate group was set up to deal with all post-implementation matters, thus freeing the project team to focus on the ongoing implementations.
BES was also talking to Calypso about upgrading to a new version of the system made available in late 2011 (and getting the vendor's people onsite to assist with this) and also extending the coverage to the front office, said Pessoa. The bank planned to replace front office solutions with Calypso for securities and derivatives, and judging by the internal sessions it had with Calypso, the BES team was confident the system was capable of handling the requirements.
There is also a strategy of standardisation in the back office space. In April 2011, BES started implementing Calypso at its subsidiary inMadrid (the bank's first international location to get this system). The roll-out is planned for early 2012.
