Julius Baer has refined the “go-live plan” for its IT renewal project in Asia, with the bank adopting a staggered rollout plan, according to an internal memo seen by Asian Private Banker.
Julius Baer said in a memo last week that “despite significant progress made compared to DR1 (dress rehearsal 1) and good momentum”, it has reviewed the launch of the project in Asia, which is dubbed JB 2.0 Asia.
The Swiss pure play said it had decided to go live with the implementation of Temenos’ core banking platform, T24 Golden Master, over the last weekend of June. A “static data go-live” will follow, while the final stage of the project will be completed by the end of September.
“The staggered go-live approach will enable a gradual increase of platform stability… and reduce overall project risk,” the memo stated.
A spokesperson for the bank declined to comment on the revised plan.
The bank said in February 2015 that the project, which involves a renewal of Julius Baer’s IT platforms globally to “deliver improved client experience, operating efficiency and flexibility”, would be completed in Asia in 2017.
Julius Baer said at the time that the project would target Asia first because “volumes” in the region represent close to 25% of the group’s business and therefore Asia “serves as an ideal template for future implementation in other regions”.
The lender is one of many private banks in the region to have embarked on wholesale overhauls of their IT systems and core platforms.
In its November 2015 strategic review, Standard Chartered said it would invest U$250 million from 2016 to 2018 to “upgrade capabilities and build a single global platform” for its private banking and wealth management units in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In March, the bank made a series of changes to its senior management team tasked with overseeing the tech revamp.
UBS Wealth Management expects to complete its global tech revamp, 1WMP, by 2018. The project sees the bank streamlining its internal IT operations onto a single platform. The Swiss lender expects to roll out the new platform in Asia by the third quarter of this year.
Mobile migration soon
Julius Baer also recently launched its mobile banking platform in Switzerland with tech vendor, CREOLOGIX, noting that the firms are in the “early stages of planning” in Asia.
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