SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and SunGard today announced plans to collaborate to address the needs banks have to comply with increasing regulatory requirements and to control costs while simultaneously driving revenue growth.
The goal is for SAP and SunGard to help customers tap the business value of enterprise service-oriented architecture (SOA) to reduce complexity, lower costs and benefit from leading compliance functionality on an integrated platform. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE '07, SAP's international customer conference, being held in Vienna, Austria, May 14 - 16.
The first offering will be a joint asset liability management solution. "This is the first step in what we hope will become a fruitful partnership between SAP and SunGard. It's a win for customers, a win for SAP and a win for SunGard. The availability of the offering will begin in Europe," said Harold Finders, division chief executive officer of SunGard's Financial Systems business. "At SunGard we expect the number of enterprise infrastructure providers to get smaller in the coming years, so we are pleased to collaborate with a world leader to offer banks our best-of-breed BancWare ALM solution on SAP. SunGard's BancWare solution is used by over 500 customers in more than 40 countries, including seven of the top ten global banks and six of the top ten European banks, and we look forward to expanding this footprint with SAP."
"We're very pleased that SunGard, a longstanding industry leader known for technical excellence and banking industry expertise will be deploying its application on a business process platform enabled by SAP," said Leo Apotheker, deputy CEO, member of the executive board and president, Global Customer Solutions and Operations, SAP AG. "The decision to execute this strategy in the banking space was easy. Banking is a strategic industry for SAP and, through the work with our partners and banks, SAP is demonstrating a high level of commitment to co-innovate with industry leaders to deliver banking solutions that help banks be the next-generation performers."
The collaboration joins the strength of SAP applications and business process platforms for banking and SunGard's BancWare (ALM), a leading solution for balance sheet risk management. Precise measurement and management of balance sheet risks depends on fast access to accurate data. Delivering SunGard's BancWare solution on a business process platform enables banks to gain a leading-edge analytical banking data management and integration platform for providing ready access to reliable data. The integrated offering enables financial institutions to measure and manage interest and foreign exchange rate risks accurately, consistently and comprehensively. Banks deploying this integrated banking management solution for asset and liability management are empowered to reduce their integration and administration effort and benefit from cost savings through lower total cost of ownership.