Banca IMI, the investment bank of Intesa Sanpaolo, has successfully migrated its equity derivatives business to Murex’s MX.3 platform and consolidated all front office activities on a single instance.
Equity derivatives follows the migration of credit, commodities, FX and rates to MX.3. The move to the new standardised platform is the final part of a multi-year transformation project at the bank to build a more scalable and up-to-date technology architecture for its capital markets business. A key to the success of the migration, which came in on time and on budget, was the new relationship approach that Banca IMI and Murex developed over the course of the project.
The MX.3 centralised cross-asset platform is bringing a number of business and IT benefits to Banca IMI. It is easier for trading desks to interact as all desks are using the same pricing models and other analytics and data. Having a single point of entry and a single point for reporting avoids any need for reconciliation between systems, and is especially helpful given the many new regulatory requirements facing the bank. As well as being a cost effective solution, the consolidated platform facilitates the configuration and the activation of new features and therefore enables Banca IMI to achieve quicker time to market for new business opportunities.
As part of their collaborative approach, Intesa Sanpaolo sent a number of its staff to work with Murex teams in its Paris headquarters. This provided not only good training for the staff on the operation of the MX.3 platform, but also led to greater understanding between the bank and Murex. As a result of this and the close working relationship throughout the project, Murex now has greater insight into how the bank operates, which makes it easier to develop new functionality or solve issues for the bank when the need arises.
“We wanted to completely renew the IT architecture that supports our capital markets activities, taking advantage of new technology developments and functionality. Part of the project was the upgrade to MX.3, and in doing this, we saw the opportunity to build a new partnership with Murex. We shared a common objective and approach, and made decisions together. Our delivery improved with each stage of the migration, and the final equity derivatives step was a big success,” says Rodolphe Petit (pictured), Head of Capital Markets & Treasury Application Management at Intesa Sanpaolo.
“The success of the project was made possible by the partnership and mutual trust we developed with Murex over many years. Now all our trading desks are able to interact easily as they use the same platform with the same analytics and data, and we have just one position keeping system to focus on,” says Cristiano Maffi, Head of Trading at Banca IMI.
Philippe Helou, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Murex, adds: “Financial institutions are increasingly undertaking multi-year technology transformation projects in order gain the benefits of a single platform. Our partnership with Intessa Sanpaolo group and Banca IMI started 20 years ago and over time the relationship has developed steadily with mutual trust. Italy is a key market for Murex and we are proud to be a close partner of the leading financial institution.”
