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IBS Journal October 2015


Avaloq: crisis? What crisis?


‘It must be simple and beautiful – and we can become the Amazon of the financial services industry.’ This was the message from Avaloq CEO Francisco Fernandez on company strategy and software functional- ity at Avaloq’s recent customer and partner event in Switzerland, Avaloq Community Conference. However, around the same time, an


article has appeared on a local news site, Inside Paradeplatz, claiming there is a crisis in the vendor’s midst. Avaloq has been a ‘victim of its own


success – projects significantly behind schedule and a third round of mass redun- dancies to top things off’, claims Inside Paradeplatz. The news site says that at a town


hall meeting, CEO Francisco Fernandez expressed frustration with ‘delays, cost hikes and bureaucracy’. Avaloq states that all the article’s asser-


tions are ‘untenable’. It dismisses the town hall meeting as


a routine event, and with regards to the redundancy procedures, Avaloq says: ‘To protect our employees’ privacy, we can’t comment on any staff procedures.’ Inside Paradeplatz claims that in each


round, the company selected 29 employ- ees for the chop, which ‘fell just short of the threshold triggering legislation on redun- dancies made for financial reasons’. In Zurich, these laws, according to


Inside Paradeplatz, ‘apply to 30 or more redundancies and require companies and their employees to jointly submit a redun- dancy scheme for approval by the canton’. Avaloq’s spokesperson hits back: ‘We


keep growing. In the first half of 2015 alone, we welcomed 200 new staff to the Avaloq group, most of which are in Swit- zerland despite the strength of the Swiss franc. ‘Overall, including B-Source [Avaloq’s


business process outsourcing subsidiary] and Arizon [a joint venture by Swiss bank Raiffeisen and Avaloq], we now count 2200 employees. Our fluctuation rate is 5.5 per cent, which is significantly below the Swiss average of ten per cent.’


...continued on next page 10 © IBS Intelligence 2015 www.ibsintelligence.com BIL Suisse migrates to Avaloq


Banque Internationale à Luxembourg Suisse SA (BIL Suisse) has migrated to Avaloq’s Swiss business process outsourcing (BPO) solution, supplied by B-Source. After a six-month implementa- tion, the bank is now live on the inte- grated banking processes and back office solution from B-Source – which is based on the Avaloq Banking Suite core offering. Following the migration, BIL


Suisse CEO Thierry de Loriol hailed Avaloq as a ‘strong partner at our side’. Avaloq has replaced Sungard’s


(recently purchased by FIS) lega- cy Ambit Private Banking (formerly Apsys) core system. The contract was signed at the end of 2014. Speaking to IBS about the project progress earlier this year, Adrian Leuenberger, head of wealth and investment management at BIL,


said the bank considered various stra- tegic options, including retaining the legacy system, ‘as part of the overall framework to identify the optimal long-term strategic platform’. He add- ed that keeping Ambit ‘was consid- ered viable, but in the end was not pursued’. The BIL group is Luxembourg’s


oldest private bank and has been offering its services in Switzerland since 1984, mainly in the private and corporate banking sectors. BIL has a history with Avaloq in


Luxembourg, albeit not a very happy one, as the two parties attempted to join forces last year to set up a BPO subsidiary and to replace BIL’s lega- cy core system with Avaloq Banking Suite. However, the agreement could not be reached on a commercial level, and the projects were scrapped. Antony Peyton


BIL Suisse HQ, Luxembourg


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