Bank Hapoalim B.M., Israel's number one bank, will start with the implementation of the IRB Approach in Tel Aviv to then smoothly implement the Basel II Accord in all entities of the group.

Bank Hapoalim started a software evaluation project in 2008, and assessed the competing proposals and workshop exercises on the basis of their functional coverage and expertise in the areas of risk management, profitability calculations and regulatory reporting for capital adequacy under Basel II. A well-developed and mature data model as well as a flexible and easy-to-implement solution were the bank's prime prerequisite, as a solid base for its planned risk and finance data warehouse.

FinArch's Financial Studio was finally selected from a string of reputed vendors. This decision was based on multiple reasons: Financial Studio offers broad and deep integrated risk management, performance calculation and reporting functionality, which at the same time ensure the bank to be regulatory compliant.

Eyal Perry, Basel II Program Manager at Bank Hapaolim, comments: "In this respect, with FinArch we have found the future-proof solution that seemed to be the most adapted to our environment. The scalability of the solution is essential to envisage future capital calculations based on more advanced approaches, while the solution allows to keep the Finance and Risk management infrastructures in line. Financial Studio leverages financial information with great flexibility and analytical depth, while preserving the high standards of data integrity and completeness to which Bank Hapoalim adheres to."

FinArch is considered by Gartner to be one of the global leaders in the provision of Basel II solutions. Financial Studio's capital management solutions come with an extensive range of functionality to address the requirements of Basel II, RAROC, economic capital and other risk-related performance measurement ratios. It provides a fully integrated capital and risk management solution that delivers comprehensive support for enterprise-wide credit, market, and operational risk management, ensuring compliance with external regulations. Organisations maximise the investments made to meet the immediate short term requirements, meanwhile building a comprehensive capital framework and enterprise risk management platform with superior internal controls.

Frédéric Simons, VP Regional Business Development at FinArch, says: "Financial Studio offers high scalability in terms of volume and functionality and thus makes the perfect solution for Bank Hapoalim. This contract also demonstrates FinArch's further commitment to the Middle East region. We are very pleased with Bank Hapoalim's confidence in our company, to provide them with a sophisticated risk management platform. Without any doubt Bank Hapoalim rapidly will receive return on investment."