Imperial Bank, the asset-based finance company, has reduced the process of loading its treasury output file into its general ledger (GL) from three hours to just 15 minutes; has reduced support response from a number of hours to just one; and significantly contained development and overhead costs as it prepares for a SAP implementation.
The bank replaced an older system with MIP Treasury, in a two-month project that included implementation, customisation, and integration into its accounting system.
“We service the corporate environment and don't take speculative decisions,” says Manny Lazera, head of asset liability management, treasury, and capital management.
“We needed a system that could run vanilla products and track the interest on those and, although we had a system in place, we have stringent support requirements and need a maximum of a one-hour response, which we now get.”
Imperial Bank, established in 1996 with Nedbank holding a controlling interest since 2001, is focused on four areas: professional, property, supplier asset, and vehicle finance.
MIP Treasury offers a number of features, such as a dealing environment, e-mail, fax, communication, cash management, reporting, workflow management, and accounting. One of its most important features in reducing Imperial Bank's total cost of ownership and ongoing return on investment is its cost.
“Monthly billing is negotiated and linked to the business's key performance indicators, such as member count, policy count, and the number of basis points of assets under management,” says Hoffie Dippenaar, divisional manager of MIP Treasury. “This model includes all product development, technology upgrades and new value-added systems.
“We also offer general ledger and financial integration as an integral part of the solution.”
“Treasury systems can be cost-prohibitive for smaller environments like ours where, although we have in excess of R50 billion under management, our volumes are low,” says Lazera. “MIP's model, which is like a rental option, is effective and the hardware requirements are minimal. Another attraction for us was that, as we migrate to a SAP environment for our loans and general ledger, that cost includes the integration of the two systems.”
Deployment, customisation, and integration took two months, and MIP Treasury ran in parallel with the previous system during that period. It operates in a client-server architecture with 10 users spread between dealers, back office, risk management and accounting, and runs on an OpenEdge database from a virtual server on HP blade technology.
Statements and reports were customised. “Imperial Bank has specific reporting requirements for the Reserve Bank and Nedbank and we also customised and simplified integration with their accounting system, Accountability,” says Dippenaar. “We have also already prepared it for the integration into the SAP environment so that we will only really need to change some parameters when they are live.
“We understand the environment, the pressures and the criteria that are most critical to businesses such as Imperial Bank; we talk the same language as their business executives, and we know that they needed a simplified, automated system to reduce the load on their employees and remove manual intervention as much as possible to speed up their processes, reduce their costs, and minimise inherent risk. We also understand the critical need for immediate support in a financial administration business where time literally equates to rands and cents either lost or made.”
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