Bankdata Reaches New Milestone on Time in Strategic Re-platforming with Murex’s MX.3 Solution

Innovative bank utility model extends the scope of coverage and announces additional banks are now live on the platform

PARIS, July 8, 2020 — Murex, the global leader in trading, risk, and processing solutions for capital markets, is pleased to announce that Danish IT service provider Bankdata has reached a new successful milestone in their front-to-back-to-risk re-platforming project.

In 2016, Bankdata, Murex and Synechron began their partnership which will provide Danish banks with MX.3 as a core shared platform for its utility service in order to rationalize their treasury management and capital markets’ activities. The objective was to consolidate existing front-office and risk management systems on a single platform and replace a legacy back office system. Its members could then benefit from an integrated cross-asset front-to-back-to-risk solution with support for regulatory compliance, lowering the total cost of ownership of supporting IT, and increasing efficiencies through the consolidation of IT resources.

In May 2020, caps, floors, swaptions, FRAs and callable swaps were added to the solution. Bankdata initiated the re-platforming project to offer an integrated and mutualized solution that covers the whole trade life cycle of Jyske Bank and Sydbank. These services have now been extended to support Ringkjøbing Landbobank and Alm. Brand Bank treasury management, coming just six months after the previous go-live.

Reaching this new successful milestone is another important step along the way towards one integrated and unified capital markets and treasury platform. The key objectives of this new successful phase, which was achieved on time and within budget, were not only to extend the asset classes coverage, but also to demonstrate the benefits of adopting shared standard configuration and test automation.

Bankdata is now accelerating the evolution of the platform, with the ability to rapidly onboard new banks including training, support, and maintenance. Furthermore, Bankdata gets the latest innovations through timely and regular Murex product updates.

The next phase of the program is scheduled by the end of 2020 with the onboarding of the remaining Danish banks and the implementation of solutions to comply with FRTB regulation. The MX.3 solution will become available for all banks of the Bankdata consortium. The banks will be able to select the functionality that they require and benefit from a modern cross-asset platform with continuous adaptation to regulatory reform, as well as simpler and more efficient IT infrastructure.

Mogens Sørensen, Vice President at Bankdata explains, “This new successful milestone which has been conducted on time despite the challenges of the Covid-19 lockdown is another fantastic achievement. Ringkjøbing Landbobank and Alm. Brand Bank can now profit from a best-of-breed solution covering the full life cycle of a trade without the burden of maintaining an IT infrastructure. The acquisition of Murex’s knowledge and experience around continuous delivery and agile implementation methodologies enables Bankdata to reduce total cost of ownership and improve front-to-back efficiencies for our member banks.”

Jean-Gabriel Eddé, Managing Partner at Murex comments, “Since its inception, Murex has played a crucial and leading role in developing innovative solutions to the capital markets industry. Driven by innovation, this partnership with Bankdata is a new model for delivering best practices to banks through a mutualized and shared platform that delivers real-time position management, consistent and fast calculation for trading and risk management, and straight-through processing. Capital markets are evolving at a quick pace and our joint mission is to manage the complexity while banks can concentrate on their core business and explore new investment strategies."

Since last year, Bankdata has piloted one of the first deployment of Murex suite of continuous delivery tools in close collaboration with Synechron, paving the way to continuous integration of changes. Synechron, a strategic Murex partner, has been part of the Bankdata re-platforming program since day one. Bankdata has been leveraging Synechron’s testing services to achieve predictable and shortened go-live cycles. Thanks to the usage of Murex testing tool (MXtest), today 92% of the system tests are automated and executed frequently on the latest version of the configurations.

Murex and Synechron managed to reach the expected goal of onboarding new banks and adding new assets despite the recent global pandemic.

Jawad Cherkaoui, Senior Director at Synechron, Head of the Murex CoE, comments, “One of the missions of our techno-functional experts is to accelerate digital initiatives for investment banks and simplify implementation complexities. This partnership with Bankdata and Murex is critical for us as we are building a unique IT utility model in the market. As we developed a full test pack with continuous integration, we facilitated the smooth knowledge transfer giving ownership of the Murex platform to Bankdata. This new successful roll-out is testament of how technology can quickly transform capital markets through agile practices and excellent delivery.”