International Bytes

ABF Capital Management, Paris, has selected a comprehensive array of fund services from BISYS, a global provider of business process outsourcing solutions for the financial services sector.

BISYS' European operations will support ABF Capital Management's new Luxembourg-based Green Planet Fund, which will be available for European institutional investors, large companies, and high net-worth clients, with fund accounting, administration, transfer agency, and legal services.

"We were looking for an outsourcing firm capable of understanding our strategic business objectives and fully servicing our first Luxembourg-based fund with cutting-edge solutions," said Claude-Henri Rouze, founder member of ABF Capital Management. "BISYS' management demonstrated they were willing and more than capable of meeting our unique requirements with advanced technology, customizable products and services, and extensive industry expertise."

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IKB Deutsche Industriebank (IKB) has selected Finance KIT version 5.1 from Trema, a provider of strategic technology solutions and management consulting services, to automate its back office.

IKB will use Finance KIT, a real-time straight-through processing treasury, cash and risk management system, to process transaction data on a group-wide level.

IKB specializes in long-term finance and is the only nationally operating bank in Germany whose range of services is directed specifically at both entrepreneurs and enterprises. IKB, whose treasury operation is located in Germany and Luxembourg, will use Finance KIT to process bonds, equities, money market instruments and FX deals, as well as sophisticated structured derivatives. IKB will implement Finance KIT on Oracle, the standard database used at IKB for all other applications.

"Finance KIT's back office functionality exactly matched our requirements," said Bernd Greitemeier, project manager, IKB. "We will use Finance KIT to process transaction data in a group-wide unified and optimized process. The fact that Finance KIT incorporates all asset classes in one straight-through processing system is one of its key strengths. Finance KIT's modern multi-tier architecture provides full scalability and security to grow with IKB."

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The Bank of Scotland will use ALLTEL's Advanced Commercial Banking System (ACBS) to unify loan servicing and processing for its corporate banking specialized lending facilities.

A division of HBOS plc, the comprehensive banking, mortgage and insurance enterprise created by last year's merger between the Bank of Scotland and Halifax, the Bank of Scotland has selected the ACBS Deal & Loan Servicing-Extended (DLS-E) system to replace an earlier version of ACBS that has been in operation at Halifax's group treasury unit since 1998.

"As a newly unified division, Bank of Scotland Corporate Banking wants to accommodate future growth without maintaining our several current systems or engaging in costly interface and customization projects," said Matt Lawson, head of operations for Bank of Scotland Corporate Banking. "Our colleagues at Halifax faced a similar integration challenge several years ago, when they concluded that the ACBS system offered the smoothest path to unified operations."