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Avaloq Services > Implementation > First Avaloq International Implementation

First International Implementation of the Avaloq Banking System

Project Background

This 18-month long Avaloq implementation took place in Luxembourg near the German border. At its peak, the project involved some 40 people from Orbium and the bank.

The Client

At the beginning of the project, the client was called Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz International (LRI), and was the Luxembourg antenna of its mother company Landesbank of Rheinland-Pfalz (LRP). LRP itself belonged to LBBW (Landesbank of Baden-Württemberg), which is one of the largest regional banks in Germany. During the course of the project, LRP merged with its mother company LBBW. In the process, LRI became LBBW Luxembourg. Today, LBBW Luxembourg employs around 300 people, most of them German nationals. The bank has activities in the Debt and Capital markets and Private Banking.

Challenges

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said that “the only constant is change”, a sentiment that succinctly sums up the challenges of this implementation. During the project, LRI was heavily affected by the sub-prime crisis. Next, it changed ownership to become LBBW Luxembourg. And finally, the bank reorganized its internal structure following these changes. In short, the bank at the start of the project bore little resemblance to the bank at the time of going live!

On top of that, a number of factors set this project apart.

• It was the first time that the Avaloq Banking System had been implemented in a bank where the reference currency of the main Business Unit was not CHF
   
• It was the first time that the Avaloq Banking System had been implemented in a bank with double accounting (IFRS and LUXGAAP)
   

• The client was a so called “client evolution”, meaning that Avaloq was regularly updated throughout the project for a smoother migration. This makes the release management process more complicated and dramatically increases the workload in terms of analysis, parameterisation and development.
   
• Several new modules were included for Cashier Operations, Forex, Credit and Money Market.
   

Scope of Project and Orbium's Role

The project covered the implementation of all Avaloq Banking System modules of release 2.7 within 18 months. Orbium was the unique implementation partner and had the lead on all business streams:

• Scoping
• Analysis
• Parameterising all the different Avaloq Banking System business modules used by the bank
• Developing the interfaces for third-party systems (together with the bank)
• Release management
• User training
• Test management (together with the bank)
• Data migration and cut-over
• Overall project management (together with the bank)

Results

Thanks to a strong result-oriented methodology and a shared vision of project management, we quickly formed a seamless partnership with the client.

We went live on time and within budget. The cut-over went very smoothly and the stabilization phase lasted just two weeks. Furthermore, very few issues were raised during production.

Orbium also took advantage of the project to build a team of Avaloq consultants in its new Luxembourg office.