Intertec Systems enables GCC banks to comply with Basel II within weeks

The solution which has already been purchased by Anglo Romania Bank, Rothschild, Abruthnot to name a few, can be installed in six weeks and offers a straightforward and quick means for banks to comply with the standard approach of the Basel II.

The Dubai-headquartered Intertec Systems is the local partner of Fernbach in the region. Intertec is a leading IT solutions provider with clients and implementations across the GCC and India.

The Basel II capital accord sets out the internationally binding standards for measuring and controlling risk in banks. The aim of Basel II is to converge external regulatory reporting and internal risk control. Compliance with Basel II is mandatory in the EU, but voluntary compliance is gaining momentum in other countries.

The Central Bank of Bahrain intends to implement Basel II from 2008.

"Fernbach`s new programme enables banks to minimize and contain the costs of Basel II compliance so that they can start reaping the benefits sooner," said Mr. Naresh Kothari, President and Managing Director, Intertec Systems. He added: "FlexFinance Base II is from both the trading and banking book perspective. Bases II is a means for managing and monitoring risk in the bank to ensure value add, and he sees Basel II as an enterprise-wide issue."

Apart from meeting their regulatory obligations, banks that comply with Basel II stand to benefit from having better risk management, facilitating daily monitoring of transactions and assessing and controlling risks as they arise.

The programme begins with a Pragmatic Gap Analysis. Within two weeks the programme will provide banks a clear vision of the data required, an assessment of the bank's current situation relative to its compliance requirements, an estimate of the work required to achieve compliance, and a step-by-step guide to fully meeting Basel II requirements.

The programme is completed by the FlexFinance Basel II Ready to Go software. This uses templates and pre-configured parameters for compliance with the Standard approach. It is delivered with a catalogue of 50 financial instruments already embedded. The software is implemented within six weeks.

Basel II and IFRS require the same deal, market and static data and have similar requirements for processing and reporting data marts. Because of the similarities between Basel II and IFRS, implementing, FlexFinance Basel II also brings banks closer to IFRS compliance.

FlexFinance Basel II supports parallel calculations so banks can run their Basel II processes in parallel with their old processes for a time to ensure a smooth transition. The solution supports Arabic language too, thus making Fernbach among the first to launch a Basel II compliance solution in the Arabic language.