The Customer

A leading international bank based in New York with operations stretching across America and Europe.

The Challenge

Structural finance primarily involves the creation of a custom loan for a corporate borrower through a number of institutional lenders across multiple countries. Our client, with branches spread across three continents, was in a unique position to assume the role of an intermediary to broker the deal, and also assume the currency and exchange risks involved in such a transaction.

The client required the ability for members of the deal team - distributed in the various regions of the world - to co-ordinate amongst themselves, in order to put together a loan package for the borrower. Obviously, user-friendliness and security were the most important considerations for the required software.

The Solution

After surveying the existing infrastructure at the bank, Analytica proposed a three-tier solution based on the Microsoft platform. This took advantage of existing investments in both hardware (servers), software (database), as well as the in-house system administration capabilities available at the bank in order to keep the TCO as low as possible.

The project was initiated with a small on-site systems analysis team that examined the client's business processes, and translated them to software requirements. In the process, a number of optimizations were suggested to the existing process that would streamline the flow of information between the different deal members.

The entire system was then designed with security as the primary requirement. Dedicated lines and/or Private Virtual Circuits using VPN were defined as a primary requirement in order to maintain the security of the entire system. These VPN's were implemented using firewalls and VPN modules at each location where the software was deployed. Scalability and redundancy were designed into the application by adopting a 3-tier approach.

Analytica performing the entire range of technical services - from business process analysis, to development, deployment support, and training - to give the client a single vendor solution for this very complex application.

The first module of this software was developed and deployed on schedule in spite of an extremely tight schedule of 3 months, allowing the client's MIS department to meet their commitments to their various divisions in Buenos Aires and Dusseldorf. Further modules of this very vast application are currently under development.