SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services to the global financial services industry, today announces the complete implementation of SimCorp Dimension at Belfius Bank, one of Belgium’s key banking and insurance groups, wholly owned by the Belgian federal state. The front to middle office transformation of Belfius Retail & Commercial Banking and Belfius Investment Partners, onto one platform with a fully integrated IBOR, has generated significant savings, in both cost and time. The successful implementation forms an important milestone for the bank, enabling flexible product expansion and further optimization of margins, a key benefit in today’s margin-sensitive environment.
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Having struggled with insufficient system support, manual processes and a number of interfaces and integration points to maintain, Belfius selected SimCorp for its highly automated technology and feature-rich functionality. The implementation of SimCorp Dimension spans across order management, performance and risk calculation, and portfolio management, covering a range of asset classes.
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Belfius’ transformation of its front and middle office operations, delivers a competitive position within the European banking space, and is a timely response to the scalability required for its rapidly growing mobile banking business. Cedric September, Chief Executive Officer, Belfius Investment Partners comments: “Dimension allows Belfius IP to truly develop its asset management activities. Our PMS is one of the foundations for our future strategic development. We appreciate the support, expertise and guidance provided by SimCorp throughout the implementation and beyond.”
Following the go-live, Belfius has seen a dramatic change in the operations of its private banking wealth division, where it handles multiple funds across a range of instruments, including derivatives. Olivier Goerens, Director Marketing & Sales Private Banking and Wealth Management, Belfius Bank adds: “The implementation of a PMS, such as SimCorp Dimension has strategic importance, because it allows Belfius to control Portfolio Management activities for our Wealth and Private Banking and provide qualitative, standardized reporting to our high net worth clients. This is a very important milestone in our long term strategy, as an important player within the Belgian market.”
Regulatory pressures were also front of mind in Belfius’ transformation strategy, which can now be more easily managed. Belfius’ compliance teams have found new asset classes and investment structures are much easier to translate. This is an important asset, given the forthcoming introduction of European regulations, such as Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) and Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR), which will hit the industry this year.
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Other key advantages following the go-live of SimCorp Dimension at Belfius Bank, include:
- Increased scalability and pre-configuration reduced to 3-6 months, achieving faster time to market on mandates and onboarding.
- Reduction in the number of manual points from contract mandate to reporting, enabling vital headcount to be re-assigned to value-added tasks.
- Increased Straight Through Processing (STP) and data visualization for asset allocation, performance and risk calculation, without manual intervention.
- Full oversight of investment funds exposure with a single view into the full trade-lifecycle, enhanced look-through and portfolio rebalancing capabilities.
- Data consistency with SimCorp’s IBOR delivering a golden source of data for daily and monthly fund reporting.
Jo De Mil, Senior Product Manager, Belfius Bank adds: “For Belfius, having an end-to-end approach was vital to our strategy. SimCorp Dimension’s front office and Investment Book of Record (IBOR) brings the critical components of the investment lifecycle all in one platform, which we consider to be core to our future prosperity. By moving away from a multiple system architecture, we are able to operate much faster and with less operational headaches. At the same time, SimCorp has challenged us to structure ourselves more optimally, delivered a partnership we are confident in, and a risk optimized operating model that our executive management can trust in.”
Hans Otto Engkilde, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, UK, Northern Europe and Middle East, SimCorp comments: “We are proud of the strong partnership between Simcorp and Belfius Bank, which has already resulted in a successful implementation, both in terms of meeting time and budget goals. But our work doesn’t stop there, and the great collaboration between the teams, now sees the start of new projects, to provide further functionality to support Belfius Bank’s investment operations. By committing to address operational efficiency, with our fully integrated platform serving the crucial front office and SimCorp’s IBOR supporting end-to-end processes, we believe Belfius Bank has chosen the best foundation to scale for future growth.”
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