This partnership is designed to capitalise upon IBS' leading position in the Russian and Eastern European market while leveraging FERNBACH's product offering, FlexFinance, to support financial institutions in Russia, Byelorussia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine. The contract includes the promotion and introduction of all FERNBACH products - including software for IFRS, ALM, Controlling and Liquidity - through IBS, supplying banks with robust and accurate solutions covering their needs for accurate risk, reporting and data management.

Founded in 1992, IBS has grown to be one of the most efficient and dynamic consulting and information technology companies in Russia. It is part of the IBS Group, a Moscow-based enterprise with more than 5,000 employees. An expert team of twelve specialists in banking software will distribute the FERNBACH solutions in the Russian language to banks. As FERNBACH supplies its industry know-how and IBS its knowledge of the local market, this partnership is excellently positioned to offer local and internationally based banks total solutions for Enterprise-wide Value and Risk Management.

"It is important for Russian banks to use state-of-the-art software which can be implemented and used in an easy way by all users integrated in the financial process. Risk Management is a common international practice at banks and reflected in the corresponding standards. Since Russian banks want to adapt to the European standards by introducing sophisticated systems, international know-how is indispensable. Therefore IBS decided to enter into a partnership-agreement with FERNBACH," said Alexej Gurewich, Director of the Department on Work with Banks, IBS.

The Luxembourg-based company FERNBACH has more than 20 years of experience in developing software for financial institutions internationally. Therefore IBS has decided to supply the FERNBACH FlexFinance EVRM Suite within five countries in Eastern Europe. The set of solutions is created on the basis of a single platform data warehouse. This so-called Data Management Suite (DMS) represents a "single version of the truth", which ensures a link between risk, financial and economic data that can quickly and easily be used by all financial departments for all FERNBACH FlexFinance solutions.

Arnaud Picut, Managing Director at FERNBACH UK, said, "The DMS lays the best groundwork for linking all FlexFinance solutions in a bank. Since IBS provides all FERNBACH products, potential customers are able to buy software packages which seamlessly integrate with each other. IBS is also aimed at growth - of profitability, competitiveness and value of its business, and in offering its clients the best risk and value management solutions possible - therefore it is in our interest to grow with IBS."

As a result of the partnership with IBS, Russian banks have the opportunity to use FERNBACH's technologies and solutions, causing them to be competitive on an international level. The fact that FERNBACH has more than 50 successful introductions of its products - also at world's leading banks - underlines the quality of its solutions. Clients of the company include Zürcher Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, HSBC, UBS, Deutsche Bank and ICBC (Asia).

Alexej Gurewich added, "We think that now is the best time for forming an alliance with FERNBACH. The Russian market is conditioned by heavy regulatory requirements, a move to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the potential recommendation of Basel II in 2008/2009. All these aspects stimulate the interest of Russian banks to introduce specialised solutions. Thus we predict a significant growth of this market and we are sure of taking a leadership position together with FERNBACH."