The objective of the project is to improve cash visibility and utilisation, increasing the competitiveness of the bank's core operations and fulfilling specific compliance objectives.

"FOREX Bank is exceptionally competitive, both as a foreign exchange provider and a retail bank," explains Alan White, FOREX Bank's Head of Trading and Treasury. "We are a cash rich business, investing in securing better returns and on cutting trade and counterparty risk exposure. The IT2 Treasury Management System is integral to our strategy of improving the visibility of and use of cash, through the management of our exposures on inter-bank markets and the management of retail and business loans and deposits."

"The visibility we're securing with the IT2 system is also about measuring and further boosting our resilience and regulatory capital in the run up to Basel III: we've already taken our Tier I Capital Adequacy ratio from 1.16 to 1.30 in the space of a year. We will also be further improving the reliability and ease of reporting to the Swedish financial regulator, the Finansinspektionen (FI)."

As well as foreign exchange services, FOREX Bank provides a comprehensive retail banking offering, providing payroll accounts, savings accounts, postal and giro payments, Internet banking, credit and debit cards and small loans services. The IT2 Treasury solution will interface with the bank's new core banking system and centralise its dealing activity in support of both retail foreign exchange and funding. Managing the integration is consultant OpusCapita, in close partnership with IT2 Treasury Solutions.

"It's a big, exciting project on a timeframe of just a few months," added Richard Nordin, OpusCapita's Stockholm-based Sales Executive for IT2. "The fact it's so closely tied in with the bank's financial objectives in long term expansion into competitive retail markets means that the results will be closely watched. We can expect more specialist financial institutions to adopt a treasury model."

Ulrich Rosenquist, IT2 Treasury Solutions' Regional General Manager, concluded: "The adoption of treasury systems for core business management in financial institutions represents a proven approach. Treasury management systems can provide highly appropriate specialist tools for managing activities such as funding, dealing and regulatory compliance."