Bank J. Van Breda, a specialist retail Belgian bank, selects riskpro™ for Asset Liability Management, extending its IFRS & Basel II usage

IRIS AG, a world leading provider of solutions for financial risk management, announced today that Bank J. Van Breda, a specialist Belgian retail bank, has selected riskpro™ to replace its current ALM tool. The bank is finalizing the implementation of riskpro™ for IFRS and for Basel II. Beside KBC, Bank J. Van Breda is IRIS AG’s second customer in Belgium and the third Belgian bank to use the ALM modules.

The trigger for the evaluation of riskproâ„¢ was the Basel II new capital accord. The bank wanted to report externally first with the standardized approach and at the same time implement the IRB foundation approach. In addition it was appreciated that IRIS is a highly professional and nimble organisation, promptly responding to the requests of smaller and medium sized customers.

The selection process started in 2004; the contract was signed in March 2005. Already during the Basel II evaluation process the scope was extended to include the IFRS modules.

The bank sees riskproâ„¢ as its core risk management and reporting system. An illustration of this is that the bank already included in the IFRS and Basel II contract an option to purchase also the ALM modules. This option has meanwhile been exercised, meaning that riskproâ„¢ will replace the existing older ALM tool.

The Implementation Team for ALM, led by Herbert Handstanger, quoted the following reasons to go for riskpro™ in the ALM area too: "Given the fact that data and core logic are very similar for IFRS, Basel II and ALM the decision to extend the scope came natural to us”.

Kris Luyten, Senior Consultant at IRIS AG, commented: "The integrated nature of riskproâ„¢ is an essential strength for this medium sized bank. It saves time and money by avoiding multiple data feeds and reconciliation processes."