NORTH AMERICA BYTES

J.P. Morgan Chase has installed enterprise analytic software from INEA to aid the merger integration process for its global investment bank

The software, designed to help large, highly-distributed companies better understand and predict business performance, is being implemented by the bank to integrate information from Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan legacy systems. The end result is a pro forma view of combined operations that provides insight into the synergies arising from the Chase/J.P. Morgan merger.

"We selected INEA as the merger integration tool because it enabled us to very quickly create a comprehensive picture of the combined organization," said Dan Hines, vice president of Investment Bank Strategic Support for J.P. Morgan Chase. "In a highly flexible, automated and user-friendly manner, INEA enabled us to pull financial information from disparate sources into one common set of business rules."

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Bank of Montreal has gone live with an online procurement service provided by Oracle.

The service, which is housed on Oracle.com, will automate, decentralize and analyze purchasing transactions at the bank, leading to a reduction in procurement spending.

"Bank of Montreal is re-engineering the methodologies it uses to purchase the C$1.9 billion in goods and services it buys each year," said Karen Rubin, vice president of Strategic Sourcing at the bank. "By choosing an online procurement service, Bank of Montreal is able to concentrate on value-added procurement tasks instead of IT infrastructure."

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The Federal Home Bank of New York is using analytic software from Principia Partners to meet FAS 133 derivatives standards, which became effective the first quarter of this year.

The software, called Principia Analytic System (PAS), is used to analyze potential transactions, value derivatives and related cash items, summarize the accounting entries and assess the effectiveness of hedging relationships. From this information, PAS enables the bank to produce internal and external derivatives reporting in compliance with the new standards.

"Our focus has always been to employ a sophisticated, quick-to-implement and easy-to-use system," said Patrick Morgan, controller for Federal Home Bank of New York. "We truly believe that we have chosen the best system and a vendor that can meet our present and future needs."

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Crescent State Bank has installed transaction-based finance management software from eRevenue, a partner of Jack Henry & Associates.

The software, called the eRev, manages certain financial operations including traditional factoring, accounts receivable, collections and credit insurance. The bank plans on using eRev to expand its offerings to small and medium enterprise banking clients, thereby increasing income derived from non-interest fee revenue.

"eRevenue has the only factoring solution that allows us to develop an entirely new product offering with exceptional returns and minimal operational staff requirements," said Mike Carlton, president of Crescent State Bank.

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Fifth Third Bank has selected a security package from VASCO and its partner Blockade Systems to secure remote access for the bank's employees.

The package will utilize VASCO's Digipass authentification technology with Blockade's enterprise security solution to provide easy-to-use and highly secure Web access to thousands of Fifth Third Bank employees.

"We were looking for a more efficient way to authenticate remote users accessing our corporate network over the Internet," said Patricia Heaton, vice president of Data Processing for Fifth Third Bank. "Proven security, reliability, ease of use, scalability and affordability were the primary considerations for our evaluation, and VASCO's hand-held Digipass authentification device was the clear winner."