Union Bank of California (UBOC) is migrating its domestic trade finance business to the Proponix pay-per-transaction trade processing platform from Canada's CGI-AMS.
The Proponix platform was acquired by American Management Systems (AMS) in 2002 from joint venture banking partners Barclays, Bank of Montreal (BMO) and ANZ. AMS was later bought out by Canadian IT services firm CGI. At the time, the platform claimed only founding partners ANZ and BMO as clients.
Proponix provides outsourced trade finance processing for banks and provides a Web-based customer portal to clients. The system features built-in workflow and imaging, in-sourcing capabilities, denied party compliance, and online reporting.
A Web-based trade portal enables banking customers to initiate and manage transactions, perform inquiries, view document images, and run up-to-date reports. Trade portal clients also gain access to supply-chain management capabilities, including trade document preparation and collaboration among banks, customers, customers' trading partners and logistic service providers.
George Schindler, SVP and head of the CGI-AMS banking practice, says banks are looking for ways to upgrade trade finance technology, reduce operating costs and offer new products while keeping up-front investment to a minimum.
"Proponix solution enables banks to focus on core business objectives and not worry about the required ongoing technology investment," he adds.
Barbara Hounsell, SVP, commercial loans and trade services operations, comments: "UBOC was looking for a cost-effective solution to enable us to keep pace with technology changes as well as gain the flexibility to adopt future trade strategies as this very competitive market evolves."