Caixa Catalunya: Alnova Financial Solutions™

Caixa Catalunya initiated a process of technological change, which involved the migration from a Unisys environment to an IBM one. The aim was to expand and strengthen its potential, enabling it to meet its business goal: growth with cost reductions.

Client Background
Founded in 1926, Caixa Catalunya is now one of Spain’s premier financial institutions, with total assets valued at €52 million, customer deposits of €41 million and more than 1,000 branches. The Caixa Catalunya Group includes companies providing a wide range of specialized financial services in the insurance, leasing, factoring and real estate sectors, amongst others.

Caixa Catalunya is the third-largest savings bank and the seventh-largest financial institution in Spain, with total assets valued at 29,222 million euros, a staff of 5,045 employees and 936 branches (as of May 2002). It belongs to a financial group that includes everything from insurance groups to leasing and real estate companies, among others.

At the end of the 1980s, Caixa Catalunya was focused on commercial banking with its activities centered on the Catalan region. Its sales network was not segmented and its technology was not adequate to handle the growth levels needed to develop in a highly competitive environment.

The company decided to change technology and migrate from a Unisys environment to an IBM one. The aim was to expand and strengthen its potential, enabling it to meet its business goal: growth with cost reductions.

A 30-month process of constructing a solid technological base began. This construction was achieved through the complete renovation of business applications, based on Alnova Financial Solutions™.

Completed in 1994, this first phase equipped the organization with a series of key strengths in its growth strategy, including flexibility in the launch of new products, better information about customers and the possibility of quickly incorporating new distribution channels. The second phase consolidated the activities of the financial group and markets, permitting diversification in customers and markets and facilitating the opening of new channels such as telephone banking.

Caixa Catalunya now has a structured, solid information base that enables it to embark on strategic programs extremely rapidly.

This competitive advantage is the starting point for the third phase of the project, which is aiming for profitable growth and is known as “The Leadership Challenge.” The cost-containment objective has led Caixa Catalunya to establish an alliance with Accenture in order to offer information technology services to the different business units of the Savings Bank that, with Alnova’s support, ensure improvements in quality and costs.

Informació i Tecnologia de Catalunya (ITC) is the fruit of this alliance and will be responsible for the planning, development and implementation of new IT applications. The results of this transformation process, which is still in progress, are already impressive:

Spectacular Growth

• Loans and deposits have grown at twice the average rate for the industry between 1993 and 1997.
• There has been a striking increase in the organization’s customer base.
• There is now a multi-channel distribution scheme.
• The client base has been renewed through the segmentation of business groups.

Positive Evolution of Profitability
In spite of rapid growth, margins have remained in line with the industry average.

Increased Productivity
These factors have been backed up by high productivity, in terms of average assets per employee, and improvements in the efficiency ratios of the organization.