Crédito Agricola Goes Live on Calypso

Calypso Technology providing front-to-back office FX functions for leading Portuguese cooperative banking group
Calypso Technology continues expansion in Southern Europe

Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading, risk and processing platform to financial institutions and corporate treasuries, today announced that Crédito Agricola, the leading Portuguese cooperative banking group, has gone live with the Calypso system to support front-to-back office FX functions. The system has been implemented to specifically support the treasury transactions of Caixa Central, the Group’s central coordinating bank. The Treasury Department centrally manages the Group’s liquidity, operates in the money, foreign exchange and capital markets, and provides treasury and financial products to the Group’s local banks and customers.

Crédito Agricola sought a robust, scalable and complete system solution that would allow it to replace administrative procedures and reduce processing costs as well as provide functionality to improve internal control and risk management. The Calypso system delivers a fully integrated trading, risk management and processing platform to manage Crédito Agricola’s cross-product coverage. The Calypso system gives Crédito Agricola the flexibility necessary to address the Group’s evolving business needs, as well as the ability to start trading new treasury products that will be fully supported throughout the trade lifecycle. Through the Calypso platform, Crédito Agricola is able to reduce operational risk by moving away from manual work and instituting STP.

“By fully covering the products we needed and comply to the specific requirements of the Portuguese market, the Calypso system provides exactly what we need to further develop and diversify Crédito Agricola’s treasury business. The implementation of the Calypso system has allowed us to improve our processes and boost our performance,” according to Pedro Sampaio, Director at Crédito Agricola. “Further, we anticipate that the implementation of the Calypso system will bring additional value to Crédito Agricola by helping us offer our customers a wider variety of products and services while reducing costs and ensuring effective risk management control. We anticipate a cost saving in the region of 35% in our back office and administration department as we have seen our processes being fully automated.”

The FX implementation is the second of three planned implementation phases and includes support for spot, forward and swap contracts. Crédito Agricola first went live on the Calypso system in 2008 for a range of functions, including interest rate swaps and simple money market functions. Phase three of the implementation started in March 2010 and is focusing on fixed income primary bonds, repos, commercial paper and Interest Rate Futures.

Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso Technology, comments, “Calypso Technology and Crédito Agricola have already achieved great success at this point in the partnership, and we look forward to working with Crédito Agricola to complete the final phase of the implementation.” He continues, “Calypso Technology is pleased to continue its growth in Southern Europe, and Crédito Agricola is a welcome addition to our expanding client base in the region.”