China Banking Corporation (known as China Bank) is Philippines' fourth largest universal bank by market capitalization. China Bank provides a wide range of banking services through 289 branches nationwide (340 if including its thrift bank, China Bank Savings).

The Wealth Management solution from Sopra Banking Software will provide flexibility and improved breadth of functionality to manage its Private Banking clients.

According to Mr. Ricardo R. Chua, Director, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of China Bank, "Our investments in new technologies must always redound to increased productivity and efficiency and improved customer value. We are confident that with Sopra, we can build a stronger, future-proof wealth management platform," said Chua.

Critical to this new partnership was not only the comprehensive solution by Sopra Banking Software, but thorough knowledge of its staff on the local banking requirement and global wealth management practices. The company's proven track record and execution capabilities across the globe had not gone unnoticed as well.

Explained Jean-Eric Camuset, Sales Director, Sopra Banking Software, "The completeness of our product as an end to end solution was a major advantage in convincing this customer. China Bank was very particular and precise in specifying their needs for the present as well as the future growth. Our team worked closely with the bank to not only identify key and current issues, but also provide pro-active advice and support in developing a solution that would be able to manage growth for the future".

The final selection of Sopra Banking for Wealth Management was based on stringent criteria including rich and broad wealth management functionality, robust technical specifications, operational compatibility, technical scalability and most importantly, implementation service track record and support standards. Mr. Chua added "After evaluating several altternatives, we chose Sopra Banking as our partners to deliver their Wealth Management solution which offered the rich functionality and flexibility to manage our current needs and also to support our continued growth".

The new system will enable China Bank to streamline information across the private bank, from the front office where the customer facing relationship managers require real-time data and information with a 360 degree view, to the back office where transactions must be processed efficiently with minimal human intervention. Other critical key considerations also included enabling the branch networks to use the standardized platforms, faster product launches and enabling third party products.