Analytical Diaries

With the seemingly unanimous attitude towards the new and coming Basel III accord for the financial services industry many business consulting outfits and technology service providers expect a feeding frenzy for a never-ending stream of new projects. Are they going to be right? anvalad looks at the potential impact and assesses the likes and unlikes:

• Most banks have struggled to achieve satisfactory solutions to cope with Basel II requirements
• Many of the solutions in place are hot-wired and will be short-lived
• Only few banks profited from the advanced Basel II approach, whereas most banks will have to up their credit underpinnings severely with the Basel III accord
• The calculation approach itself will not change fundamentally hence new solutions are only asked for where none (or only bad ones) are in place

So with all of the above taken into account it seems obvious, that there will be a host of new projects. However Financial Services clients will be weary to re-live the expensive and ineffective projects they have gotten used to in so many failed Basel II implementations. Whether global consulting firms promise out-of-the-box miracles or technology powerhouses calculate razor-edged turnkey contracts, the big unknown always comes with the client’s history and is mostly spelled “heterogeneous” with a capital H.

Data integration projects will continue to be nightmarish endeavors and only when you are able to combine the knowledge of the business with the experience of the systems involved and top this mix off with a solid template-based technology framework can you hope for success. This success however must not hide behind 18 month project structures but needs to produce initial results in three to six months.

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