Cognizant acquires Finnish IT firm Samlink
Cognizant Technology Solutions will acquire Finland-based IT service management company Samlink and get to look after a shared core banking platform for three firms in the country.
Financial details about the acquisition were not disclosed
Financial details about the acquisition were not disclosed.
As part of the deal, Cognizant says it has been selected by three Finnish financial institutions, Savings Banks Group, Oma Savings Bank and POP Bank Group – who all previously owned Samlink – to build and operate the platform for digital transformation plans. More than 10% of Finnish banking deposits and loans will be managed by the new platform.
Under a multi-year agreement, the new core banking platform, based on Temenos T24 and Temenos Payment Hub (TPH), will be used by the banks to launch new products and services.
Santosh Thomas, president, global growth markets, Cognizant, says: “We look forward to welcoming Oy Samlink Ab employees to Cognizant. Oy Samlink Ab is well known in Finland for its deep technical expertise, collaborative culture and strong reputation for excellent delivery. We plan to establish banking and financial services’ centres of excellence at their facilities which will enhance Cognizant’s ability to serve clients across the Nordics, specifically, and in Europe as a whole.”
Cognizant will acquire the technology services provider from a veritable mixture of companies.
Savings Banks has 42%, Aktia owns 22.56%, Oma Savings has 15.45%, Handelsbanken comes in with 7.53%, Posti Group possesses 5.88%, POP has 5.24% and there also several other minority shareholders.
The transaction is expected to be completed on 1 April 2019.
Aktia’s story
Aktia points out that in 2013 it made the decision to renew its core banking system together with Temenos and the Swedish company Emric (now part of Tieto), and hence cease to use Samlink’s system environment.
The new core banking system was implemented in 2017. The bank says since the other owners of Samlink have now also made decisions regarding their new core banking solutions, it is in accordance with Aktia’s strategy to divest all shares in the company together with the other owners of Samlink.
The transaction will generate approximately €8 million sales profit for Aktia.
