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Banca Popolare di Milano consolidates banking channels with Jacada

[Johannesburg, 6 April 2004] - Jacada, a provider of software that accelerates business process improvement, has announced that Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM), one of Italy's largest banks, has successfully deployed Jacada. Jacada software was used as part of a project to consolidate multiple channels within BPM's banking system onto a unified Linux platform with a Web-based application interface.

The new system provides bank employees with a single, comprehensive view of customer account information, which simultaneously improves the customer experience, lowers operational costs and reduces the complexity of the underlying information technology.

Says Alex Steyn, managing director of local supplier of Jacada solutions CommerceQuest: "Many local as well as international financial institutions experience the complexity of viewing 'green screens' -- the traditional way to view applications within a mainframe environment. Instead of switching between various screens within applications, Jacada's integration solutions provide the user with a simplified single view, making it easier to work more quickly and efficiently."

Says Clive Whincup, CIO at BPM: "Our main goal was to integrate all our channels so we could have a single view of our customers. Channel integration gives us a competitive advantage because we can be more reactive to business demands and cut the cost of implementing and maintaining the system."

In the second phase of the project, Jacada will integrate these applications to other Embratel systems, including its Siebel CRM system. Jacada is a certified Siebel partner with over 40 joint customers. By incorporating legacy data within existing business processes and applications, Embratel will cost-effectively leverage business-critical data that is often difficult to access.

About 70% of the bank's branches are based in northern Italy, with the rest located around Rome and southern Italy. "By moving from client/server to the Web, we do not have expensive software distribution costs to the branch, and implementation is much easier," explains Whincup.

In addition, the new infrastructure helps BPM lay a foundation for the future. Going forward, BPM expects to be able to offer new services - such as support for financial advisors - with minimum investment and a streamlined approach to managing and distributing upgrades to bank branches.

Jacada now serves as the primary link between the bank's mainframe applications and the IBM WebSphere e-commerce application that acts as the main interface for employees at over 700 bank branches."

Wincup concludes: "Jacada was chosen because we saw it as the best product for the job. It is easy to use and provides the performance needed to connect to our IMS and CICS applications. In addition, BPM was particularly impressed with Jacada's commitment to the new Linux environment."

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