Dubai Bank, a leading innovative, Shari'a compliant financial institution, selected Optial following an exhaustive, competitive evaluation of many leading operational risk management products.

The Optial SmartStart platform, a pre-configured system designed for rapid deployment, has been implemented and is now being deployed across the bank. Specific customisations have been made for the bank, easily achieved through Optial's powerful configuration capability. The system has a broad functional scope that includes loss database, operational risk self-assessments, key risk indicators, internal control monitoring and policy distribution.

Initially the system is used by group operational risk, audit, internal compliance and risk officer in each business line and at branch level. In the next stage the system will be rolled-out to all employees of the Bank to enter loss events at source.

Optial will ensure compliance with the Basel II Standardised approach, leading to support for a full Advanced Management Approach through integration with the FERNBACH FlexFinance Analytix modelling engine.

Optial is represented by its partner Intertec Systems, based in Dubai, who have worked closely with the Optial team to provide support during the implementation and will now provide local support services post implementation.

Faizal Eledath, Chief Information Officer, Dubai Bank said, "Although it makes up a small percentage of our risk profile, the nature of Operational Risk means that it contains the unlikely events that could potentially have very serious consequences to the bank and its reputation. Therefore it is essential to have an effective reporting infrastructure to monitor our risk management processes, as well as measure the risks we face, or may face. Using Optial's operational risk software means that we will be able to demonstrate clearly to the supervisor and all of our stakeholders that we are successfully meeting the criteriateria for Basel II Standardised approach, followed by AMA recognition in the future."

"The key aspects for us in the acquisition process were functionality, flexibility, responsiveness to our needs, proven workflow functionality and local support. Optial working closely with Intertec Systems, was the clear leader in meeting these needs. The Optial SmartStart system comes with all of the required functionality out of the box with the flexibility to support us in our journey towards AMA approval."

"I am delighted to add Dubai Bank to our customer base and as our first customer in the Middle East." said Chris O'Brien, CEO of Optial. "It is apparent that Dubai Bank needs a platform that can support its Operational Risk Management and regulatory requirements in an economic and efficient way. Optial's system architecture has been expressly designed to meet all of the bank's requirements, many available from our standard SmartStart platform, and to adapt to changing regulatory and operating conditions with a minimum of effort."