IBS Journal May 2015
Alberta ©Mark Stevens, Flickr
oped Acumen specifically for the Canadi- an credit union market in the mid-2000s and the system had a reasonable uptake (it even made inroads into the US). However, following the addition of DNA to the Fiserv family, Acumen was killed off. Around 15 Canadian users of Acumen were forced to look for alternatives. In November 2014, Celero completed
Canada’s first conversion from Acumen to Eroworks/DNA, at Vision Credit Union. The project was complicated by the merger of two credit unions, Caisse Horizon and Bat- tle River, which formed Vision CU. It was completed in 34 weeks, with the vendor stating that it was ‘one of Celero’s – and Canada’s – fastest conversion and integra- tion initiatives’. The project was split into two phases: firstly, Caisse Horizon’s data was moved from Acumen to DNA, followed by the integration of the two entities on one core banking platform. Meanwhile, another Acumen tak-
er, Westoba Credit Union, opted for CGI’s RFS core banking system. Incidentally, RFS also has connections to Fiserv/Open Solu- tions. RFS is based on the Wealthview/Ova- tion platforms from Fincentric, the vendor acquired by Open Solutions in 2007. CGI and Fincentric, both based in Canada, had
a long-standing relationship dating back to the 1990s, from which the RFS plat- form was derived. Westoba CU is working towards a June 2015 cutover and will join a community of around 60 users of the sys- tem.
Another well-entrenched domestic
supplier is Strategic Information Technol- ogy (SIT), which has its Portfolio Plus core banking offering installed at large banks (usually for a specific functionality, such as term deposits) as well as at smaller banks and FIs. These are largely mortgage and specialist financing entities. Over the last three years, it has added Marathon Mort- gage Corporation, Tribecca Finance and Infrastructure Ontario to its client list. The latest known recruit is Paramount Equi- ty Financial Corporation, a niche private mortgage lender and administration bro- ker, which went public on its Portfolio Plus project in early 2015. At the same time, SIT has been making inroads to interna- tional markets, and in 2014 landed a deal to implement its core banking system at Export Import Bank of Trinidad & Tobago (Eximbank). The bank was a long-standing user of Oracle FSS’s Flexcube. Meanwhile, Central 1 Credit Union, the primary liquidity manager, payments
© IBS Intelligence 2015
processor and trade association for 140+ member credit unions in British Columbia and Ontario, is persevering with its imple- mentation of a new treasury and capital markets system, MX.3 from Murex. In the upper-tier space, core banking
system conversions are not high on the agenda, with the banks investing in solu- tions to address specific pain-points. The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), for example, is implementing a new CRM system (believed to be Microsoft Dynamics) to replace its legacy in-house development. TD Bank and CIBC are revamping their
pricing and billing solutions, with both banks opting for the specialist software from Zafin. In another project, CIBC has selected Oracle FSS’s Flexcube for manag- ing limits, and to monitor and report the utilisation of the credit facilities by its com- mercial customers. Hot on the heels of TD Bank and CIBC
is Scotiabank, which has also signed for a new pricing and billing platform, for its global transaction services (GTS) unit. And a similar project is imminent at National Bank of Canada, it is understood. The bank has also gone through a technology over- haul of its trade finance operations (see p48 for more details).
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country spotlight: canada
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