Saudi Riyad Bank rebuilds treasury tech with Calypso
Riyad Bank will use Calypso technology to improve its STP rates
Saudi Arabia’s Riyad Bank has chosen technology company Calypso Technology to help revamp its treasury operations and improve its back office.
The Riyadh-based bank runs a network of 251 branches and 20 self-service centres across Saudi Arabia. It also operates 2,600 ATMs across the country, as well as separate offices in London, Houston and Singapore.
The Calypso system will be used by the bank to support its structured products and hedge accounting in FX cash and derivatives, money market, interest rate derivatives, fixed income and commodities markets.
Riyad Bank will move from a process-based operation model to an exception-based model, a decision intended to improve its straight-through-processing rate. Also, the bank hopes to align its treasury operations with international and Islamic financial industry standards. Saudi Arabia is one of the core markets for Islamic banking and financial services.
“It was important for us to select a vendor that would deliver industry best practices, front-to-back-office support for structured products and cross-asset capabilities as well as the Shariah-compliant support that is critical for our market and for growing the business regionally,” said Riyad Al-Zahrani, executive vice president of operations at Riyad Bank. “We went through a robust selection process during which Calypso outperformed other solutions in areas of functionality, flexibility and technology.”
