platform was taken to process and monitor subsidised loans made through the banks. Faddoul said the intention was to link the banks into the system. This might be done via leased lines or satellite links or, if this was not feasible, by delivering the information on CDs. The system was being implemented in Baghdad and this was where the head offices of all the banks were based at this time. The training was being carried out in Amman and the cut-over was scheduled for April 2006. BML was planning an office in the country, albeit being staffed by two local resources (one of which had been identified and was being trained by early 2006). Faddoul was cautious about pursuing business with the Iraqi banks themselves because, understandably, he was not willing to send non-Iraqi staff into the country at this time. As the dust started to settle, Misys was part of a consortium chosen by Iraq’s largest state bank, Rafidain Bank. ICS added Elaf Islamic Bank, Investment Bank of Iraq and Ashur International Bank for Investment. BML and Al-Rahmania won deals at Union Bank of Iraq in 2007 and National Bank of Iraq in 2008. The banks opted for centralised systems, with thin client branch interfaces and connectivity through VSAT. It was decided that the central system for Union Bank of Iraq would be in Arbil, in Kurdistan, while National Bank of Iraq’s system would be in Amman, in part because it was 60 per cent Jordanian owned. Two other Iraqi banks were added before the end of 2008, with Mansour Bank and Economy Bank for Investment both taking ICBS for universal banking. BML lost the former, however, just the following year when it opted instead for Equation.


Ahead of this, during 2003, there was success for BML at


Saudi Lebanese Financial Investment Corporation, a consumer credit company. It seemed like a dream sell. Faddoul said, ‘out of the blue, they telephoned and asked to see a demonstration, and then they signed two days later’. This was in October. The company had one site and hoped to be live with ICBS within around four months. The system was taken for consumer credit and was again the Oracle version. Another deal came in November 2003, from Yemen and Gulf Bank. Faddoul said that the bank signed with another supplier a year or two earlier, but that this ‘went nowhere’. This time around, ‘there was no formal RFP or anything like that. We did a demonstration, the bank asked some questions, then it signed’. The bank took ICBS on Oracle to manage its back office and branch network, and also bought components for trade finance, capital markets, and loan management. The system was also interfaced to Swift. ICBS was replacing ‘pieces of systems’, said Faddoul. The implementation commenced in early February 2004, and the system was due to go live in April. Yemen and Gulf Bank was a small institution, with only a few branches. It was relatively new, having been set up three years earlier. One other project in BML’s home market is worthy of mention. This was at the central bank, Banque du Liban. In the second half of 2003, it was seeking a range of systems for its own requirements as well as to form the basis for an ASP


46


solution for other banks in the country. A back office system was one component, with System Access seemingly in pole position to win this deal. However, the selection dragged on, with no known outcome. Nevertheless, during 2005, BML did gain two projects within the central bank. First, it was commissioned to build a system for storing, analysing and processing regulatory reports submitted by the country’s banks. Second, it set about building a solution to monitor and report on real estate owned by banks. Perhaps a rather surprising snub in its home market


came from Banque Libanais pour le Commerce (BLC Bank) which had been installing new systems across all areas of its business, including the Phoenix retail back office system, the Mosaic branch system (with these two taken via Kuwait-based International Turnkey Systems – ITS), and Sungard’s Quantum for treasury. The bank did not consider BML. Hassan Bassam, the bank’s CIO, explained in mid-2004 that the board was not comfortable with the AS/400 hardware (the Oracle version was not available at the time of selection) and it was felt that an international solution would be more appropriate. The BML solution was felt to be too tailored to the Lebanese market, hence supporting what Bassam described as ‘Lebanese practices and malpractices’. At the same time, ICBS was used by BLC Finance, a subsidiary of BLC Bank. Much more positively, in early 2005, Commercial Bank of


Kuwait signed for the Oracle version of ICBS. Acquired modules included general ledger, retail branch, loans (consumer and commercial), foreign exchange, money markets, transfers, trade finance, management information, and statutory reporting, plus interfaces to Swift, ATMs, interactive voice response and POS. According to Faddoul, a pilot branch was scheduled to cut over in July, with the full roll-out taking place in the second half of the year. The deal was that much more notable for the fact that the bank had given up a year or so earlier on a broad project to implement the broad suite of software from Indian supplier, Polaris. It took a cautious route this time, implementing ICBS by branch and by module in a phased project.


BML made good progress in 2005, and followed this up


with a breakthrough in Belgium in the third quarter of the following year. This came from existing customer, SocGen. This bank bought a Belgian entity, Bank de Maertelaere in Ghent, and needed a system to cover its lending activities. The requirements were similar to those handled by ICBS at Fidus- SG in Beirut. As such, said Faddoul, there was little needed in the way of customisation. As with most of SocGen’s ICBS sites, it took the iSeries version for Belgium. The BML system was interfaced to the Belgian operation’s core system; the project ran into 2007. The broadest deal of 2006 came at Oman Development Bank, which took ICBS in the second quarter for its universal banking activities, needing to replace a locally-derived platform which it had outgrown. The bank had ten branches and ICBS was due to go live in the second quarter of 2007. In Lebanon, later in 2006, Lebanese Leasing Company, an offshoot of existing


Universal Banking Systems Market Report | www.ibsintelligence.com


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