IBM Helps Banks Tackle Basel II Compliance

In an effort to help banks to use existing infrastructure to get a better handle on transactional and data management complexities associated with impending Basel II Capital Accord compliance, IBM on Monday introduced its new Risk and Compliance Basel II Information Management offering.

IBMs Risk and Compliance Basel II Information Management reference architecture removes integration hurdles by knitting together a framework of IBMs banking data warehouse, DB2 Universal Database, pSeries line of servers, IBM TotalStorage FastTstorage server and two Basel II templates wrapped around IBM BCS (Business Consulting Services) in a compact, modular package.

The templates come in two flavors. The Application Template features multiple algorithms that outline an organizations data requirements to allow quick scoping of data and supports a banks risk engines, noted Karen Parrish, vice president of Business Intelligence, DB2 Information Management Solutions for IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y. The Business Template covers all of the reporting requirements for Basel II, feeding that information to reporting applications linked into the data warehouse, such as those offered by Cognos Inc. and MicroStrategy Inc., through DB2 cube views.

Basel II has not been finalized and is still evolving. Its recommendations require that by the end of 2006 banks must have at least three years of backdated customer and operational information. The Basel II Accords are recommendations from the Basel, Switzerland, Bank for International Settlements Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. They provide official guidelines for financial institutions that standardize measurements of credit risks, market risks and operational risk.

Parrish said customers most profound pain points with Basel II center around the location of data, where it is stored, access to and tracking of data—essentially, the management of datas lifecycle. She said that future development of the offering will allow data management delivery of multiple data sources, especially from Seibel Systems Inc. and SAP AG applications, the latter of which is expected to be ready for roll-out by the second half of this year.

Despite inherent difficulties, Basel II and other regulatory compliance measures can give organizations a competitive advantage by incorporating a centralized infrastructure to properly control data management, according to Stephen OGrady, an analyst at RedMonk LLC, based in Bath, Maine.

IBMs Risk and Compliance Basel II offering is currently available and features an entry-level price of $350,000.

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