IBS Journal October 2015


Bank Yahav in major core transformation with TCS Bancs


System selection The bank went to market in 2011 and scru- tinised three offerings: Temenos and its T24 platform, Callataÿ & Wouters (now Sopra Banking Software) and its Thaler system (now known as Sopra Banking Platform), and TCS with Bancs. Key requirements were identified for a


successful vendor: • • • • •


leading international company; proven product quality; financial strength;


reference sites and experience;


‘fully getting in the shoes of Bank Hapoalim’ in terms of replacing all re- tail core banking modules and offering a complete outsourcing set-up;


• • •


creating a dedicated IT unit to support the core system;


pricing agreed in advance for the build and roll-out phases


compliance with local regulatory requirements.


Bank Yahav – facts and figures


• •


Established in 1954.


Specialises in financial services for the retail sector, households, and salaried employees.


• Until early 2009, the bank’s focus was on government employees and the public sector.


•


Since its expansion to offer services to all salaried employees in Israel, it has accumulated the market share of 8.5 per cent of all household bank accounts in Israel.


• By the end of 2017, the plan is to reach ten per cent of this segment.


• The bank now offers a broad range of financial services, includ- ing loans and investments.


•


It is jointly owned by Mizrahi Tefahot Bank (50 per cent) and by the state through the Company for Economic and Cultural Projects for State Employees (50 per cent).


•


As for the product, the bank’s major specifications were: • •


retail banking capability;


full integration with capital markets (trading, consulting etc), front-to-back office, as the Israeli law has no division between cap- ital markets and retail operations;


•


integration with multiple exter- nal organisations;


• modern technology, such as Java; •


installations at major banks worldwide;


channels, including mobile, online and IVR.


TCS ticked more boxes than its


competitors. The vendor is now build- ing the systems and three major piec- es of software are set to be delivered before the end of this year. System customisation is kept to a manageable limit, says Davidyan. ‘Some changes in the system are inev- itable as it needs to fit unique business and market requirements of the Israeli market and our bank. However, on the whole, we are adopting the product as it is, as much as we can – to standardise, comply with international best practices and avoid costly upgrades.’


Challenges and what’s to come ‘It is a huge project – not only are we estab- lishing an IT landscape from scratch, but we also have to ensure that the bank keeps running successfully in the meantime,’ Davidyan states. ‘The workload is immense.’ A ‘big bang’ go-live is scheduled for 2016.


‘We decided against phased migration as it would take much longer and require too many interfaces,’ Davidyan explains. ‘We already have more than 500 interfaces overall!’ It would also be a bigger risk, he adds,


from customer disruption as well as regula- tory perspectives. A key challenge is to keep the project


well organised and under full control. ‘We have over ten per cent of the bank’s employees dedicated to the project, and this number will grow daily.


© IBS Intelligence 2015


...continued from front page


Gadi Davidyan, Bank Yahav


In addition, there are people from TCS


onsite and we also travel regularly to the vendor’s locations in India,’ Davidyan says. ‘Synchronising the onshore and the off- shore teams is challenging, especially as we are working with dozens of TCS teams.’ A language barrier is an issue, so the


bank had to bring onboard translators to assist. There are also consultants helping with the adaptation of Bancs to the specif- ics of the Israeli banking market and its reg- ulations. Understandable and anticipated challenges, comments Davidyan, ‘as we are the first in Israel to adopt TCS’s core and the first in the country overall to adopt a global package’. Another local bank has followed suit


since – Bank Leumi – but its project is con- siderably smaller in scope. The bank has recently embarked on creating a start-up digital bank, underpinned by Temenos’ T24 and Temenos Connect products.


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