Dresdner Bank has handed over to IBM Germany the management, development and running of its financial market information database, developed by the bank and vendor over several years. In future it will call in on demand the data it needs for validation and risk monitoring.

The database collects, archives and analyses financial information of various kinds and processes it for risk control use by the bank, giving highest priority to data quality assurance. Under the terms of the sell-off, IBM will manage the entire process and operate the database for the bank as a business transformation outsourcing provider. It will also offer the service to other customers.

Otto Steinmetz, Dresdner Bank director in charge of risk management says the move is in line with the 'New Dresdner' future programme, which aims at focusing on core competencies. It follows the sale last month of its operational risk control software to CapCo.

Says Steinmetz: "With IBM handling process management and running the database, Dresdner Bank will be able to achieve sustainable cost savings with constant quality and an assured supply of all the relevant market data whilst keeping our own know-how in risk valuation and management."

Norbert Dick, IBM's managing director worldwide of business with the Allianz Group says the target group for the service includes universal and investment banks and insurers, asset managers and corporate groups.

"Buying in market data of this kind is interesting not just because it costs less than an in-house solution but because of the higher quality of the data provided," he says. "That should be of interest for all banks and insurers for whom the new service will provide more and better data."

Dick points to independent research estimates that put the market volume for reference data in Europe at around $1.3 billion in 2001 and growing. He says that around a quarter of banks are considering either outsourcing or buying in these services.