Avaloq
 |
|
| Public (Aktiengesellschaft) | |
| Industry | Core banking, Financial services |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Headquarters | Freienbach, Switzerland |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Website | www |
Avaloq is a Swiss company which develops and provides software for core banking. The software system, Avaloq Banking Suite, is used by more than 140 banks worldwide.
Core banking is the activity, at the heart of any bank, that deals with information about customers, transactions and account balances. Banks have traditionally bought in software for such purposes rather than developing it internally and then more and more functions have had to be added over the years as requirements have changed, for example for online banking. The result has been very complex computer programmes which can be difficult to manage and coding changes can be problematic for new regulatory compliance and for accommodating new products.
As a result, banks have tended to buy in modern comprehensive software from large, specialist firms and this may be run by the bank itself or by an agency running the computing service on behalf of the bank.
Avaloq was founded in Zurich, in 1985, under the name "BZ Informatik Aktiengesellschaft", functioning as the information technology subsidiary of BZ Bank. In 1991, 30% of the share capital was taken by the employees as a result of a partial management buyout. At that time there were five staff and the cost of the buyout was $200,000.
The first customer was Swiss National Bank, rapidly followed by five other commercial banks in Switzerland. The system then spread worldwide although it has had little impact in America. Initially the firm was called BZ Informatik, and its product “AdvAntAge”.
In 1996 the current name was adopted. In 2001 the company was split from BZ Bank, as the employees acquired 100% of the share capital.
Avaloq Banking Group AG employs 2,500 staff, 500 of which are programmers, and it has annual revenues of over $500 million with bank deposits to the sum of $4 trillion accounted for using the software. The founder and chief executive is Francisco Fernandez.
The Avaloq Banking Suite software is used by over 450 customers including HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Nomura and Societe Generale. Some of the customers have performed business process outsourcing to Avaloq itself for the actual running of the core computing service which uses cloud computing. Apart from a 10% holding by a Swiss bank, Avaloq is owned by its employees and it has major offices in Zurich, Edinburgh and Manila. In 2016 the firm was rumoured to be seeking investemt from private equity investors.
...
Wikipedia