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Best use of IT in retail banking:

Lloyds TSB – Strategic Citrix Farm
When offshoring began within Lloyds TSB the speed to market determined which technology was fit for purpose, for particular business units, but the overall effect of this was to create a siloed approach. In an effort to break this outcome, the bank has partnered with Citrix and Fujitsu to construct a Strategic Citrix Farm to centralise its operations and reduce infrastructure costs.

Lloyds TSB – VoIP Network
The project put in place the infrastructure for a centralised front end Interactive Voice Response (IVR), central call management and call recording capability, utilising Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for telephone banking.

RBS – Contactless Card Project
The contactless technology team has enabled RBS to the first bank to introduce and trial contactless payments in the UK. This has been achieved by changing the RBS Acquiring system (called Streamline) to acquire contactless payments, rolling out contactless terminals to retailers and issuing up to 130,000 contactless debt/credit cards in London.

RBS– Emergency Cash Service
Designed to assist customers who have lost their debit card, or had it stolen, the RBS Emergency Cash Service is simply a security code that can be used at over 7,000 RBS Group ATMs to withdraw an agreed amount until a replacement card arrives.

NAG – Group Teller Programme
The Group Teller Programme has successfully delivered a single retail banking platform for staff across 400 branches at Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks – part of the National Australia Group – with no business disruption, significantly reducing complexity and total ownership cost.

SBAB
The introduction of activebank retail software from Financial Objects has enabled Sveriges Bostadsfinansieringsaktiebolag (SBAB), a residential mortgage and corporate lender wholly owned by the Swedish government, to break into the Swedish retail savings market.

Best use of IT in wholesale and investment banking:

ABN Amro – MaxTrad Portal
The MaxTrad supply chain portal is a leading-edge online platform that enables companies to optimise their working capital and forge the sustainable supplier relationships on which their business depends. It is at the heart of our advanced financing solutions which provide liquidity and enhance the supply chain’s resilience.

ABN Amro Bank – SPOT Programme
The Shared Product Opportunity Tool (SPOT) is an electronic tool sponsored and developed by the Commercial Client Segment Support Team in conjunction with product specialists from across Global Markets, Transaction Banking and Asset Management. It uses actual credit data and the latest company financials for all our corporate clients globally and searches for potential product opportunities.

Bank Julius Baer
By implementing an intranet-based trading solution, Bank Julius Baer’s asset managers gain direct access to its trading environment. The bank is able to offer improved levels of service to its clients and benefits from greater profitability and efficiencies. Since its launch, the tool has experienced a fifty-fold increase in the number of deals closed.

Barclays Wealth
The Barclays Wealth organisation was created by amalgamating seven Group business areas. It therefore required a unified technical department to support staff so has nearshored its service desk to Glasgow and the Isle of Man from London and standardised its procedures and knowledge in accordance with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines. The firm has also installed HP’s ServiceCenter software.

Citigroup
Citigroup used the Platform Symphony grid solution to develop a cost-effective utility computing model that has optimised resource utilisation and reduced IT expenditure.

Credit Suisse – eFX
In 2007 the bank introduced a cutting edge Foreign Exchange (FX) e-trading solution offering users unprecedented speed, functionality and ease-of-use. Constructed in under a year, eFX has booked many billion pounds worth of trades and this is just the beginning.

Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets (GM) business has expanded rapidly in the last few years, causing a reduction in IT resilience and stability and introducing the potential to adversely impact performance. The IT Services Programme was introduced in 2007 to align IT with GM’s strategy for growth and has successfully moved GM IT from chaos to order, creating a common agenda to maintain high levels of IT service.

Dresdner Kleinwort – Research & Analytics Portal
The Research & Analytics Portal delivers insight and investment ideas in a pioneering format. The bank designed and built a global portal that replaces five, separate, non-integrated online platforms, drawing information from 15 different databases – while providing a single intuitive user interface to expose all the internal research intellectual capital simply and powerfully.

Best use of IT in insurance:

Ark Syndicate Management Ltd
Ark Syndicate Management had just a few months from its inception last year to get ready for business. In the N-Dex Suite underwriting application from Northdoor, it found a Lloyd’s and FSA-compliant package that provided swift implementation, functional flexibility and long-term scalability.

Axa Winterthur
Axa Winterthur, a leading Swiss insurance company, is standardising its processes across its Group Life division using Tibco BPM software. The project delivers claimed seven figure savings and quadruples project workload, leading to improved customer service and lower administration costs.

Brit Insurance
The insurer set out to implement a three phase storage management project involving EMC’s archive solutions and a centralised back-up strategy. The consolidated environment has provided Brit Insurance with a more realistic view of storage requirements and quantity, minimised unused storage volumes and the potential for unnecessary tape recalls. Over storage costs have been reduced by up to 40 per cent.

Forester Life
The Forester Advise and Sell Technology (FAST) system, developed in conjunction with global IT service partner CGI, has been further developed to enhance the customer offering, most especially for the launch of a new range of protection products.

InsureandGo Prepaid Travel & Claim Card
Implementation of advanced payments technology, working in conjunction with Altair, for a prepaid card that serves a dual function – namely, travel FX and insurance claim payouts.

RBS – Insurance Voice Recording Project
The Royal Bank of Scotland’s Group Insurance Voice Recording Project has delivered a solution that has generated significant process and efficiency savings and ensured compliance with FSA regulations. The volume of call recordings since implementation is well in excess of 10 million, making this one of the largest insurance voice recording projects in Europe.

RBS – Tesco Compare
A joint venture by RBS Group Technology and Tesco built an end-to-end business platform in 2007 for Tesco Compare, an online price and features comparison aggregation service aim at the car insurance market. The service successfully launched on www.tescocompare.com in September 2007 with more than 30 insurance brands for comparison, including More>than, AA, esure, Churchill and many others.

Standard Life
Standard Life issued nearly eight million sheets of paper in the first half of 2007. The firm’s new online Document Centre will help cut this figure and can send documentation to customers in a contemporary way – i.e. via pdf, email and the web. The project has cut waste and improved efficiency, customer satisfaction, and security.

Best use of business to business ecommerce:

Canada Life Group Insurance
The CLASS system aims to streamline group risk processes and offer a more cost-effective way to quote, place and administer protection business for intermediaries. The risk web portal means insurance can be placed more easily and comprehensive management information can be accessed online.

Close Invoice Finance
Specialist factoring firm, Close Invoice Finance, has developed a paperless online invoice discounting system, which it says can deliver a fast, accurate and easy-to-use solution that can be integrated into clients existing systems.

Newcastle Building Society – AAO project
NBS has implemented Automated Account Opening (AAO) to make it easier for online customers to join the mutual society. The service, which includes ID checks and direct debit instructions, has also been rolled out to third party clients, who want to outsource their online savings processing, on a white labelled basis. Iceland’s Landsbanki did precisely this with its UK online savings product.

RBS – Global e-recruitment system
RBS Group has installed a consolidated global cross-divisional e-recruitment system across all of its brands, including NatWest, Churchill, and Coutts.

Standard Life – Make Payments v2.0
Thanks to Make Payments v2.0 the routine task of making payments to an employer-sponsored pension plan is now far easier. The new service means end users can update a schedule at any stage during the month and select a convenient date for Standard Life to collect payment.

Anti-fraud strategy of the Year:

Nationwide
Faced with an escalating number of phishing attacks, Nationwide risked brand-equity erosion and loss of customer trust. MarkMonitor’s anti-phishing solutions were deployed to prevent online fraud and regain customer confidence in internet banking. Within three months Nationwide saw return on investment achieved with significant reductions in cyber-crime.

Prudential
Prudential has partnered with Callcredit to consolidate its electronic customer verification requirements across its UK operations, including its Property Investment Managers and Health divisions. The new systems and procedures enhance security and comply with all relevant anti-money laundering (AML) and data protection rules, as well as providing a clear audit trail.

RBS – Two-factor authentication project
In support of the group’s aim to provide safe and secure electronic banking, RBS’ in-house development team has delivered an enhanced two factor security solution to protect retail internet banking customers against identity theft attacks.

Compliance project of the Year:

Bank of Ireland
BOI has deployed NetEconomy’s Compliance Manager AML solution to combat terrorist financing, money laundering, efficiency gaps and other perceived threats.

ING Direct
The new anti-money laundering eLearning module from ING Direct replaces an older, less efficient training solution, enabling the firm to save money and enhance its compliance with the latest AML advice from the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group (JMLSG).

NAG - Clydesdale & Yorkshire banks
Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks – part of the National Australia Group (NAG) – were compelled to review their existing Credit Rating System on advice from the FSA and replace it with a more sophisticated and transparent model to meet Basel II requirements.

RBS – SEPA Credit Transfers
The project ensured that the Royal Bank of Scotland Group was able to meet the requirements of the mandatory EU Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative. In particular, it enabled the processing of SEPA-compliant Credit transfers – inbound and outbound – by the 28 January 2008 deadline.

RBS – Insurance Voice Recording Project
The Royal Bank of Scotland’s Group Insurance Voice Recording Project has delivered a solution that has generated significant process and efficiency savings and ensured compliance with FSA regulations. The volume of call recordings since implementation is well in excess of 10 million, making this one of the largest insurance voice recording projects in Europe, claims the bank.

Standard Life Investments
As part of its drive for process improvement and cost reduction, the investment arm of Standard Life developed a spreadsheet remediation tool and new business practices to ensure a common standard for all business critical spreadsheets across its operations, which has assisted compliance reporting.

Systems integration project of the Year:

Barclays Wealth – Client Reporting Project
The Client Reporting Project, which uses Actuate technology, has transformed growth and client service into a key differentiator that has enabled Barclays Wealth to grow its customer base; reduce its front office admin costs; meet rigid UK compliance reporting concerns; and boost customer satisfaction levels.

Dresdner Kleinwort – Research & Analytics Portal
The Research & Analytics Portal delivers insight and investment ideas in a pioneering format. The bank designed and built a global portal that replaces five, separate, non-integrated online platforms, drawing information from 15 different databases – while providing a single intuitive user interface to expose all the internal research intellectual capital simply and powerfully.

Nottingham Building Society
In order to improve its agility, communication and competitiveness the Society has completely overhauled its IT infrastructure, including a new network, storage and disaster recovery centre. Integrating all of these new systems has been a challenge but it equips the Society with the ability to grow and compete in the modern world.

RBS Group – NT to XP Programme
Due to the non-standard nature of the Coutts IT estate in the UK, a separate programme was launched to integrate its legacy infrastructure to the RBS Group standard, which moved from NT to XP following Microsoft’s discontinuation of support. The earlier group-wide move involved approximately 34,000 desktops. File and email data also needed to be updated and integrated onto the new platform.

UniCredit
The vision of UniCredit was to merge the operations of three Bulgarian banks – Bulbank HVB Biochim and Hebros bank – to bring them under a common IT platform and thus create one of the biggest banking entities in the country. This was achieved with the i-flex FlexCube system.

Networking/cabling project of the Year:

Deutsche Bank – LNDC project
Deutsche Bank is working with Corning, and a cabling installation team from Bailey Teswaine, to deliver 50,000 square foot of tier 4 data centre space across two sites during 2007 and 2008.

Deutsche Börse Systems
Part of the Deutsche Börse Group, the systems team develops, builds and operates the Börse’s trading, clearing and settlement systems, such as Eurex and Xetra for the derivatives and cash markets respectively. The team recently developed a group-wide ultra-low latency network, in conjunction with Cisco and COLT, to support enhanced broadcast and trading solutions and to prepare it for the challenges ahead.

Lloyds TSB – Voice & Data initiative
Multi-million pound investment to simplify, standardise and revolutionise the network infrastructure in 2,000 branches, 4,000 ATMs, 180 offices and three data centres, throughout Lloyds TSB. The project involved the implementation of a new core fibre network and upgrading the routers, switches and cabling to support converged networking technologies, resulting in phenomenal bandwidth increases and a strategic platform for future growth.

RBS – Dalkeith Bypass
Building the A68 Dalkeith Bypass entailed cutting the inter-data centre and managed services fibre-optic trunk cables, which carry data on all RBS group services. The bank completed a highly visible project to migrate services on to new fibre-optic cables and mitigated any risk from the road work themselves.

Lloyds TSB – Strategic Citrix Farm
When offshoring began within Lloyds TSB the speed to market determined which technology was fit for purpose, for particular business units, but the overall effect of this was to create a siloed approach. In an effort to break this outcome, the bank has partnered with Citrix and Fujitsu to construct a Strategic Citrix Farm to centralise its operations and reduce infrastructure costs. The installation is now helping ensure productive outsourcing relationships with Xansa, Firstsource and IBM.

Newcastle Building Society – AAO project
NBS has implemented Automated Account Opening (AAO) to make it easier for online customers to join the mutual society. The service, which includes ID checks and direct debit instructions, has also been rolled out to third party clients, who want to outsource their online savings processing, on a white labelled basis. Iceland’s Landsbanki did precisely this with its UK online savings product.

Best security strategy of the year:

Kas Bank
Kas Bank n.v. regularly handles security transactions worth billions. As a provider of investment management, custody, clearing and settlement services, the bank is well aware of the growing security risks associated with high-value online transactions so it has installed the ActivIdentity smart banking ID solution to ensure security, while still meeting customer demands for usability and convenience.

RBS – User Identity Management project
The Royal Bank of Scotland has installed a comprehensive User Identity Management (UIM) database solution, based upon Oracle technology, to improve employee controls in regard to granting access to internal IT systems and applications.

Standard Chartered Bank
The bank wanted to track and control the spread of information more effectively to reduce the risk of data leaks or unauthorised access so it is deploying the Workshare Protect unified content protection solution to 55,000 users around the globe.

Best business continuity implementation:

Credit Suisse
Capacity issues and the old-fashioned disaster recovery facilities at Credit Suisse’s Canary Wharf data centres meant that the bank needed to act. Credit Suisse has responded by implementing a global reusable data centre design allowing 100% per cent uptime without increasing maintenance overhead of IT teams and a sub-one millisecond network latency for production infrastructure systems, aimed at remote users. The template, originally implemented in Slough, UK, is now being rolled out around the world with the latest installation being a data centre in Raleigh, USA.

Britannia Building Society
The Financial Services Authority requested Britannia Building Society to put in place, by December 2007, a solution whereby core business data is backed up and available offsite in a location more than 10 miles away from two data centres situated in Leek, Staffordshire. The Remote Data Backup project was the result and it is part of a wider scheme to improve the society’s business continuity capabilities over the next three years.

Brit Insurance
The insurer set out to implement a three phase storage management project involving EMC’s archive solutions and a centralised back-up strategy. The consolidated environment has provided Brit Insurance with a more realistic view of storage requirements and quantity, minimised unused storage volumes and the potential for unnecessary tape recalls. Over storage costs have been reduced by up to 40 per cent.

Nottingham Building Society
In order to improve its agility, communication and competitiveness the Society has completely overhauled its IT infrastructure, including a new network, storage and disaster recovery centre. Integrating all of these new systems has been a challenge but it equips the Society with the ability to grow and compete in the modern world.

Best use of CRM technology:

ABN Amro Netherlands
By deploying the Tallyman debt management system from Experian Decision Analytics, ABN Amro Netherlands, the largest bank in Holland [now part of Fortis bank], has been able to reduce the level of consumer debt write-offs, improve relationships with customers in arrears, by adopting a more customised approach, and cut the costs of managing these customers.

Barclays Wealth – Client Reporting Project
The Client Reporting Project, which uses Actuate technology, has transformed growth and client service into a key differentiator that has enabled Barclays Wealth to grow its customer base; reduce its front office admin costs; meet rigid UK compliance reporting concerns; and boost customer satisfaction levels.

Dresdner Kleinwort – eResponse platform
eResponse is Dresdner Kleinwort’s Customer Relationship Management platform for recording requests which come via the external website. The platform records the individual who the request is from to determine whether they are known to Dresdner Kleinwort and to direct their query to the appropriate department.

Exeter Friendly Society
The Society is a provider of comprehensive health insurance plans. In an effort to improve customer service and heighten understanding of customer requirements and behaviour, it recently embarked on a project to reinvent its customer complaints management system.

Norwich & Peterborough Building Society
The business had a requirement for a system that would provide a complete view of a customer’s product holdings, identify potential future sales leads, ensure all important data was available and provide business retention prompts. As part of a phased development, the CRM lite project was initiated.

Skandia
Skandia UK is a life pensions and investments organisation that sells to the public via intermediaries. It has implemented the Thunderhead Now platform to make communications more personal and timely, and to improve its engagement with customers. The technology also aims to increase productivity and reduce the time spent in creating customer communications.

Best payments deployment:

ABN Amro – SEPA Service
The proactive Single Euro Payments Area Service – part of ABN Amro’s Enterprise Payments Approach, which harnesses new ISO XML standards for straight-through processing with an optional conversion service for legacy formats – automatically selects the SEPA Credit Transfer as the payment method when all criteria are met, accelerating financial institution clients’ migration to SEPA.

Altair Financial Services
The Altair Mobile Payment System can add value to client card programmes and, in turn, provide cardholders with flexibility and accessibility to easily manage their funds, via their mobile phone. The technology has already been deployed on Altair’s own MoneyShare remittance prepaid card.

BCW Group
Debt management specialist, BCW Group, is using a speech-based self-service payment solution from Sabio to provide a constant 24x7 service for consumer debt payments.

Standard Life – Make Payments v2.0
Thanks to Make Payments v2.0 the routine task of making payments to an employer-sponsored pension plan is now far easier. The new service means end users can update a schedule at any stage during the month and select a convenient date for Standard Life to collect payment.

Citi
From its inception through construction, occupancy and operation a resource efficient, balanced approach has been adopted in regard to Citi’s new European data centre to ensure sustainability without compromise to operational efficiency or reliability. The reusable design incorporates recycled materials, advanced cooling techniques and heat recovery systems, and virtualisation technology.

Credit Suisse
Capacity issues and the old-fashioned disaster recovery facilities at Credit Suisse’s Canary Wharf data centres meant that the bank needed to act. Credit Suisse has responded by implementing a global reusable data centre design allowing 100% per cent uptime without increasing maintenance overhead of IT teams and a sub-one millisecond network latency for production infrastructure systems, aimed at remote users. The template, originally implemented in Slough, UK, is now being rolled out around the world with the latest installation being a data centre in Raleigh, USA.

Deutsche Bank – LNDC project
Deutsche Bank is working with Corning, and a cabling installation team from Bailey Teswaine, to deliver 50,000 square foot of tier 4 data centre space across two sites during 2007 and 2008.

NAG – UK Data Centre
The National Australia Group, which includes Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2010 and as part of this drive is replacing the air conditioning in its UK data centre. The project is expected to deliver a cost saving of £520,000 and a CO2 reduction of 3,900 tonnes over a 10 year plant life.

IT team of the year:

Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank’s Global Markets (GM) business has expanded rapidly in the last few years, causing a reduction in IT resilience and stability and introducing the potential to adversely impact performance. The IT Services Programme was introduced in 2007 to align IT with GM’s strategy for growth and has successfully moved GM IT from chaos to order, creating a common agenda to maintain high levels of IT service.

Lloyds TSB – Midrange Environments project
Due to a large number of regulatory and strategic programmes, the bank’s Group IT team needed to provide constant 24x7 access to the midrange development and testing environments, while still ensuring full resilience and backup without disruption. By utilising internal and external resources constant availability is now established and build turnaround times are now much shorter, with greater efficiency and speed now built into the process.

NAG – Technology Team
After a number of years of underinvestment and a stop/start development pipeline, the UK Technology team at National Australia Group, which includes Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, decided to launch a strategic agenda to take advantage of the windfall gained from the sale of Northern Bank to invest in new IT. New development procedures and money has been spent on completing a customer-centric mortgage processing application, a new branch teller estate, and the convergence of Clydesdale and Yorkshire’s core banking application.

Newcastle Building Society
The in-house IT team at NBS has undertaken a varied workload over the last year, including third party ‘white label’ business for four major clients and multiple internal system upgrades, such as the roll out of Microsoft Office, the launch of numerous prepaid card schemes, conversion of customers to a 10mg pipe and a new fraud detection system. A further 15 members of staff have also been integrated into the team following the merger with Universal Building Society.

RBS – IP Property team
The Infrastructure Projects (IP) Property team provides technology for property-related initiatives within RBS. Over the last year, the team has successfully delivered over 300 separate projects, including the commissioning of 44 new buildings, refurbishment of 35 buildings and the relocation of 11,000 staff. A ‘hot desking’ concept has also been introduced, branch upgrades and a new 750-seat call centre in the north of England.

RBS – Throughput Management methodology
The Group Technology (GT) team’s ability to deliver high availability of service and fast turnaround times for development projects is a key driver for growth at RBS. In consultation with project managers, and the operations and infrastructure departments, the team has therefore introduced a Throughput Management (TM) methodology that aims to deliver test and production environments on time, every time, by utilising common templates and procedures and enhancing re-usability where possible.

Overall winner:
The winner will be announced on the night of the awards.