JPMorgan has discretely ditched its operational risk management platform, Horizon, as part of a plan to focus on its core treasury servicing business.
Horizon is a Web-based, enterprise-wide operational risk management system designed to help managers document the controls established to mitigate risk, evaluate compliance efforts and identify areas of the business that lack control procedures.
The system was developed by JPMorgan's IT controls group and was used globally across the bank's investment banking operations before it was released in October 1999.
The bank teamed with Ernst & Young to launch the platform and the technology became a central part of Ernst & Young's suite of operational risk management products.
But JPMorgan made the decision to ditch the platform in January 2005 following a business review at its core treasury unit. The bank is unwilling to elaborate on its decision, but has apparently been working with Horizon users over the last year to support their transition to other platforms.
London-based operational risk consultancy and software vendor Chase Cooper has launched its own 'Horizon Migration Model' for users of the platform.
The migration model enables Horizon users to move quickly across to Chase Cooper's own operational risk and compliance system, Accelerate.
Zag Asghar, a director of Chase Cooper, says one of the biggest issues Horizon users face is how to make an effective transition from existing systems to new, more functional systems, with all the implications that this will have for change management and data migration.
"We are already working with existing Horizon users to help them address these issues," says Asghar.