www.bancoguayaquil.com

The FINANWARE financial approach datawarehouse model has made it possible for Banco de Guayaquil to consolidate the different data sources by providing a single information and corporate record channel.

Situation
The continuing changes in the economy and the world economic environment have given rise to structural changes in the financial sector, thus making it increasingly important to meet the challenges imposed by the globalization of markets and the resulting need of self-regulation. Institutions and governments have seen the need to reach consensus, such as those achieved by the Basel Committee, which define the principles for the monitoring and control of financial institutions.

Financial institutions invest significant resources in implementing financial and control concepts and methodologies, seeking information on which to base decision making and allowing managers to evaluate the achievement of their strategic plans on an ongoing and timely basis.

In such an environment, Banco de Guayaquil maintained a management information system based on the generation of static reports produced upon demand. These reports had to be transformed by using analysis tools into spread sheets in order to produce the minimum information necessary for management decision making, all of which required significant analytical and technical efforts from a number of areas in that institution.
Solution

Solution
FINANWARE™ is a Business Intelligence solution that uses all the facilities provided by the information technology available through current-day information technology to supply information and tools for decision-making purposes in the banking industry. It focuses on providing effective replies to highly relevant business queries for successful banking and financial management.

These business-related questions are channeled in the FINANWARE™ solution through four fundamental approaches: financial analysis and benchmarking, risk management and control, measurement, profitability monitoring and control and analysis of the customer relationship management. All this information is integrated and processed in an integrated corporate business model created with Datawarehouse architecture and tools, among others, that enable Banco de Guayaquil to have a unique and complete picture of the organization.

FINANWARE™ is designed and built according to the Microsoft DNA multi-layer architecture by using the recommendations suggested by Microsoft to build distributed applications.

In the data layer, FINANWARE™ uses the SQL Server data-base management services and the data extraction, transformation, validation and loading tools provided by the SQL Server's DTS service. Additionally, because it is built under industry standards, FINANWARE™ supports any data base engine with the OLE-DB interface through the Active-X.(ADO) data components. In the business layer, FINANWARE™ uses the Microsoft MTS transaction server and the COM+ applications server under the Windows NT Server operating system, version 4.0, or the Windows 2000 Server.
In the presentation layer, FINANWARE™ is built with 32-bit Windows applications and Active Server Pages/Internet Information Services. FINANWARE™ applications may be installed in the Windows 98 Second Edition Operating System or later versions of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems with DCOM support.

FINANWARE™ implements Office Web Components in its user interface.

Additionally, FINANWARE™ offers the possibility of viewing cubes through an Internet browser, with an Active Server Pages execution support.

The use of Visual Studio throughout the FINANWARE™ building process facilitated the integration and control of the development until its distribution and maintenance stage.

In Banco de Guayaquil around thirty customers have been successfully installed on Microsoft Windows 98, Second Edition, and Professional Microsoft Windows 2000 work stations. The applications server uses the Microsoft Windows NT Server, 4.0 version, operating system with Service Pack 6. The data server uses the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and Microsoft SQL 2000 Server.

At present with this information platform, Banco de Guayaquil can process all of its management information in detail for operations, expiries, customers, accounting, costs, etc. with an effective time of reply and an optimal use of its human and technological resources, through the flexibility and ease of use afforded by FINANWARE™.

Benefits
Benefit 1. Consolidation of the information by controlling the duplication of data.
The traditional management information generation process has typically fallen upon the transaction systems themselves which, besides bearing the operating burden of the transactions generated by the institution must also generate reports upon request by the users. These reports are very often limited by their own architecture because their design was not meant to cover every information-generating function and, even less, to generate management information.

The FINANWARE™ business model consolidates, through its homologized base, the information coming from the internal and external data sources of Banco de Guayaquil, converting it into unique information within the datawarehouse model. As an example, in FINANWARE™, the operating code and its number as well as the customer's identification and description are unique in the model to avoid the duplication of data and provide reliable and true information.

The implementation of the FINANWARE™ business model also helped to identify weaknesses in information sources, which were solved via an internal corrective process, thus making for the current optimal management information system and a cleansed data source.

Benefit 2. Generation of information for the regulatory authority, according to the Basel Committee recommendations.

According to the recommendations of the Basel Committee for risk management and control, the Banking Superintendency of Ecuador prescribed that the required information be reported to this entity within a three-month period.

Banco de Guayaquil complied with this legal requirement by generating the specified information and by the due date, through the Asset & Liability Management module that was already being produced several months before the requirement was established.

Benefit 3. Information analysis with diverse business approaches.

The operations, accounting balances and customer data information of Banco de Guayaquil contained in FINANWARE™ BIM allows the user to obtain management information with a variety of approaches to the line of business.

Thus, with the FINANWARE™ Asset & Liability Management module, the bank has a tool to measure and control the exposures generated by its assets and liability management, through facilities for a historical and integration analysis of projection and simulation tools according to the Basel Committee recommendations.

Because profitability is the final goal of every business and the financial sector is highly competitive, control of this vital parameter is critical. FINANWARE™ Profitability enables Banco de Guayaquil to ensure the effective measurement and control of profitability. Accordingly, direct product and financial services operation costs can be allocated in order to integrate specialized mechanisms for the allocation and distribution of indirect costs, supplemented by the analysis and technical management of the cost of money (FTP) for the final purpose of applying a detailed profitability calculation formula which provides a full and multidimensional view of the profitability by product, by office and by customer.

The FINANWARE™ Analytical CRM will provide Banco de Guayaquil with the data-processing tools required to evaluate its business position and to implement a relations marketing strategy by allowing the identification, segmentation and selection of the most valuable customers, the determination of the products, services and points of service used by the customer as well as the products that customers should use, according to their profile and characteristics so as to maximize the bank's profitability and fully tap the potential of each customer for the business.

For the identification of and knowledge about the customers of the institution, FINANWARE™ Money Laundering Prevention and Control incorporates the necessary facilities to segment the customers, under criteria relating to asset laundering control and prevention so that the bank can monitor customer activity to detect any unusual or suspicious behavior that should be recorded, investigated and reported according to internal control and regulatory agency requirements.

Management performance is measured both vertically and horizontally through the FINANWARE™ Financial Analysis which provides to higher management and to the bank's financial committee a dynamic evaluation of the financial information for a specific period.

To supplement the analysis it is necessary to have flexible tools that make it possible to evaluate and monitor competitor performance. By using the FINANWARE Benchmark, Banco de Guayaquil is able to extract the financial information available to other financial institutions by incorporating easy-to-use analysis management and decision-making tools.

As a solution to the mass dissemination of business information to Banco de Guayaquil's strategic areas, the FINANWARE Portfolio makes possible the management and viewing of reports that are tailored to the final user without the need of being directly connected to the datawarehouse while maintaining the functionality advantages and strengths of the report submission dynamic component.