Barclays Bank Mozambique goes TM1

Issued by Global Research Partners for MCI
Johannesburg, 04 Feb 2008

MCI Consultants, the leading distributor for Cognos/Applix's TM1 product in South Africa, today announced that Barclays Bank Mozambique, a member of the Absa Group and the bank with the second-largest footprint in Mozambique, had embraced TM1 as its reporting tool.

Barclays Bank Mozambique has 52 branches spread across Mozambique and boasts the largest ATM network in the country.

"We needed to streamline our finance department's reporting processes. That included not only our internal and group reporting, but that required by Bank of Mozambique," commented Fernando Madeira, Head of Finance at Barclays Bank Mozambique.

"TM1's OLAP engine, which provided the capability to have several different account roll-ups, facilitated the production of the relevant financial reports to suit these different audiences."

"In addition, as we are part of the Absa group, but based in Mozambique, the capability to have multilingual reporting in Portuguese or English was also desirable," added Madeira. "TM1 provided this functionality through the use of aliases."

TM1 is updated daily with management information in multiple currencies, by branch and in addition to key performance indicators. TM1's rules calculation engine performs automated cost-driver-based allocation of support function charges to business as well as funds transfer pricing.

"We are delighted that TM1 has been adopted by Banco Austral, as this further enhances our presence within the Barclays and Absa Group of companies, particularly on the African continent," concluded Aliki Droussiotis, Director of MCI Consultants. "We are also very fortunate to have a Portuguese speaking TM1 consultant as a member of our staff team as this helps to minimise any potential language misunderstandings that could arise."

For further information, please contact Aliki Droussiotis, MCI: tel 011 454-3420, fax 011 454-3417, e-mail aliki@mci.co.za.

Cognos

Cognos, a world leader in business intelligence and performance management solutions, provides world-class enterprise planning and BI software and services to help companies plan, understand and manage financial and operational performance.

Cognos brings together technology, analytical applications, best practices, and a broad network of partners to give customers a complete performance system. The Cognos performance system is an open and adaptive solution that leverages an organisation's ERP, packaged applications, and database investments. It gives customers the ability to answer the questions - How are we doing? Why are we on or off track? What should we do about it? - and enables them to understand and monitor current performance while planning future business strategies.

Cognos serves more than 23 000 customers in more than 135 countries, and its top 100 enterprise customers consistently outperform market indexes. Cognos performance management solutions and services are also available from more than 3 000 worldwide partners and resellers. For more information, visit the Cognos Web site at http://www.cognos.com.

MCI Consultants

MCI Consultants is a South African-based business information systems consulting firm specialising in providing software solutions to the business community, specifically to the financial services and personnel recruitment industries.

It offers complete solutions, including accounting systems (ACCPAC), business intelligence solutions (Applix/Cognos) and recruitment solutions (AdaptRecruitment), as well as bespoke developments including software for the JSE Stock Brokers, including Trading and Portfolio systems that also incorporate e-commerce and mobile technologies.

The company's approach is to continuously provide solutions to meet clients' changing requirements. It takes pride in delivering excellent customer service and building lasting partnerships with clients.

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