ICT Allrounder

Own Company

This securities master application, also called FDE (i.e. Financial Data Enterprise) is build by NESS Technologies (i.e. Israeli company). It will collect all security related information provided by external sources such as Telekurs, Reuters Bloomberg etc, and translate this information into an application independent internal format (i.e. publish adapter).

Within this context I already took up 3 assignments.

1. For the first assignment it was my responsibility, as a functional analyst, to define the specifications to build a subscribe adapter that will convert the published information, for everything related to static data, into a target format that will be consumed by the former securities application (i.e. FIS, Financial Instrument System), who will further distribute this information to the designated back-end systems.

2. For the second assignment I did something similar to upgrade the current template to distribute pricing information from FDE to FIS.

3. In the meantime, I have switched roles from a functional analyst to test coordinator (still within the same context). My test management activities are/were:

• Working out a test approach
• Daily follow up & overall coordination, lead testers
• Report on progress and remaining risks (i.e. Test Status Report)
• Defect status management & follow up
• Plan and organize test preparation & execution for all test phases using Quality Center
• Follow up delivery patch process (i.e. software upgrades)
• Liaise with the software provider and KBC Business
• Act problem solving, being pragmatic & goal oriented

IBM

From June 2009 until September 2009 I was engaged in a project involving AXA Belgium and IPA (i.e. Inter Partner Assistance) within the context of the corporate healthcare insurance industry. The goal of the project was to define and optimize a new business operating model that could facilitate the following challenges:

• Significant quality improvement of the actual service delivery model, both from a business and IT perspective to enable a superior customer experience.
• Enhanced control and supervision of the actual customer base, better management of the current product portfolio and a controlled execution of all business operations.
• Improved market branding to revitalize the market's perception of AXA, being a strong and trustworthy player within the healthcare insurance business.
• Make it a cost-effective and profitable business for AXA and IPA.

Tasks & responsibilities:

• To assist the IT lead in establishing a view on the current application landscape, and its ecosystem together with all internal and external interfaces.
• Perform various assessments on AXA-IPA's IT operating model (e.g. audits on strategy, business & IT alignment, IT governance & performance, IT Competences & maturity, IT infrastructure, IT processes, IT standards & technologies, service providers...).
• Helping to establish a 'To Be'-vision of the future operating model and all possible transformation scenarios to realize this vision.
• Assisting in quantifying the related IT benefits & costs per scenario.
• Facilitating the decision process to select the most appropriate transformation scenario.

From October 2008 until February 2009 I was assigned to ING Bank account in Amsterdam. I participated in a proof of concept to rollout IBM's Industry Framework (i.e. IFW) for the banking industry, to design and build a Standard Lending Model to service the general lending needs for small & medium enterprises and mid corporate clients of ING. This model will:

• Deliver both sales and servicing capabilities for a simplified product set.
• Provide credit facilities through all required channels (i.e. multi channel).
• Realize cross border synergies.

At the same time I was also engaged in the setup of a Design Authority function at ING to:

• Ensure that future solutions and changes implemented by ING are fit for purpose and adhere to the stability and simplification of the IT landscape.
• Facilitates the creation & maintenance of Standards, Rules & Guidelines and Reference Architectures.
• Ensure high quality and maturity of solutions and services that comply with the actual Standards, Rules & Guidelines.
• Professionalize the role and processes of the ING Architects.

inno.com

From February 2008 until September 2008 I was assigned to the AXA Bank account for the e-Bird project, which is an initiative of AXA bank' board group in Paris. The project's key objective is to launch and develop a series of Internet banks (i.e. direct banks) across Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The main business drivers motivating this initiative are:

• To realize a fast entry into new emerging markets.
• To realize a shorter time to value/market for products and services.
• To protect AXA's customer base from banking-related attrition by offering a valid AXA e-Banking alternative.
• To satisfy customer demands by offering a relevant and complementary set of insurance and banking products and services.
• To increase the Group's overall profitability.
• To realize a better cost model per business service/unit ...

AXA Bank chose to look and select a retail banking software package (i.e. COTS) and a reliable system integrator to deliver and implement a concrete instance of AXA Bank's country agnostic Standard Model Bank. The Standard Model Bank is based upon the "Bank in a Box" concept: focus is on fast deployment (i.e. 3 to 6 months) and operational efficiency (i.e. maximum pass through processing and alignment with business en regulatory environment). The target solution should at all times remain a standard solution, which means that the required configuration should be done, preferably, by parameterization instead of hard coding (i.e. customization).

My contribution involved the setup of the business requirements for all product-related documents, correspondences (e.g. account statements, tax certificate, certificate of deposit...) that are to be exchanged with the external world. Next to that, I also made a conceptual blueprint, from a business perspective, representing a layered application architecture for AXA's Standard Model Bank.

From December 2007 until January 2008 I was assigned to the ING Bank account. My role was to provide support in realizing ING Bank's vision to become a Universal Direct Bank (i.e. realize a high degree of STP, if relevant, for all kinds of products via the internet). Therefore ING Bank needs to transform its current business operational model into that of the new target model, which currently is still under construction. It speaks for itself that such a transformation will have an enormous impact on the current ICT architectural landscape. To realize, manage and implement this huge effort ING Bank has set up a program, i.e. Domestic Transformation Program.

Within this context and to facilitate the move to the new target architecture it was my team's mission to define and document, in a structured way, both from business and a technical point of view, the current As Is Architecture. The As Is view would enable ING Bank to perform an impact analysis in case of a business change, a product change or an ICT change.

My contribution involved the set up of a product-service matrix, which revealed the different interaction scenarios (e.g. sale, update, transaction, consultation...) that are currently possible between the bank and their clients via the various access/delivery channels (e.g. Home Bank, Call Center, Branch, internet...) for their entire product portfolio.

EDS

From July 2007 until November 2007 I provided support in a pre-sales context for Fortis Insurance, Fortis Merchant Bank and a possible offering by EDS to provide services dealing with future challenges and opportunities during the Fortis-ABN AMRO post-merger era, i.e. ICT Master Plan.

From May 2006 until June 2007 I was assigned to the Fortis Bank account, working within the context of the City Plan program. The program's goal was to both innovate and face Fortis' future challenges. One of the challenges comprised the centralization of the complete securities (handling) value chain for all Fortis' cross border branches (i.e. Fortis Netherlands, Luxembourg, France...) and their different lines of business (i.e. Retail and Private banking). This project is also known as the 'CHORUS' program.

My mission was to develop a migration strategy highlighting the top-level requirements, risk issues and dependencies to move the local securities processing (for the retail client segment) from the local Dutch platform to one central/shared platform in Belgium.

The application used by Fortis Netherlands is Europort+, a tool developed and maintained by Syntel Ltd. The purpose was to migrate, in a big-bang approach, the huge amount of relevant data from EP+ towards the target platform to guarantee and continue all business operations as usual for the Dutch retail client segment. To realize this goal I have developed, starting from scratch, a concrete and detailed migration scenario (including all manual/automatic tasks (i.e. units of work) with dependencies, elapse times, responsible persons etc) to transfer all referential and operational data from EP+ towards the shared platform. Throughout the year dress rehearsals were organized to simulate, test, change, improve and fine-tune the ultimate scenario. During the dress rehearsals and the final production migration, I was responsible for:

• The whole setup and (practical) organization.
• The cross-border coordination and communication.
• The follow-up of the scenario in running mode (which tasks can be executed now, which tasks are late), anticipating when/where needed.

The migration was a success and the target platform did go 'live' on the 25th of June 2007.

From February until May 2006 I worked for Fortis' Merchant Banking business unit in Amsterdam, which wants to become a major prime broker next to Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.

Fortis wanted to offer a high quality prime brokerage service by combining and integrating both existing and new IT business services to provide a robust and reliant environment through which it delivers the prime brokerage service.

One of the components of the prime brokerage ICT architecture is a reconciliation tool that will perform an internal reconciliation between two front-end systems and several back-end systems currently used by Fortis Merchant Bank. This tool will compare and analyze two or more related data records and, if any discrepancies appear, report them to demonstrate Fortis' proof of accuracy and to comply with any regulatory requirements. The reconciliation involved is located at the very end of the Prime Brokerage value chain. My mission here was to describe the top-level requirements and dependencies (i.e. project charter) for such a reconciliation tool and to proof that the systems currently in use were unfit to extend their capabilities to cover the Prime Brokerage requirements. The path chosen was to screen and validate other systems available within Fortis that matched the requirements. Finally, I advised to use IntelliMatch reconciliation tool of the Sungard product suite for which Fortis apparently had already a competence center in place.

From April 2002 until February 2006 I worked for the FinFrameTM program, which was sponsored by the EDS' Financial Industry Group, i.e. internally funded project. Together with my other colleagues, I have developed the functional models (business processes, use case & class diagrams) in close collaboration with FinFrame's Chief Architect. EDS' slogan ?Idea to Reality' was put into practice and resulted in concrete UML models based on a very strong conceptual architecture.

The value of FinFrameTM was recognized when Bank Leumi, the second largest bank of Israel, signed a 100 million dollar deal to reengineer the whole ICT portfolio. This gave the opportunity to test the FinFrameTM models and approach by practical project experience. Other customers: CBA (Australia), ABN-AMRO (Holland), SEB (Sweden), Dresdner Bank (Luxembourg), KBC (Belgium), FinForce (Belgium) ...

FinFrameTM is a multi-dimensional framework, a service offering and a knowledge management initiative for the Financial Services Industry (FSI). It helps financial institutions to reach Six Sigma quality through adaptive ICT solutions.

In a nutshell:

The FinFrameTM team works in an R&D mode of operation to build starter kits to develop and structure knowledge that can be used by others to build and configure customized system solutions to enable agile business transformations.

Tasks & responsibilities:

• Developing and documenting (generic) business processes for several business domains within the FSI using Corporate Modeler.
• Developing and documenting automated functionalities by using use case diagrams in Rational Rose.
• Developing and documenting class diagrams in Rational Rose to describe the different system objects and the relationships that exist among them.
• Writing white papers covering the most important topics within the FSI.
• Making high-level concept presentations to highlight and clarify the most important aspects and views on the subjects involved.
• Provide support to EDS satellites and existing customers to realize a FinFrameTM project by coaching, defining and reviewing the FinFrameTM business models and architectures from a functional viewpoint.
• Assess functional questions and elaborate or propose alternative solutions in collaboration with other team members, resolve pending issues.
• Provide support in FinFrameTM related sales activities.
• Coach fellow analysts, review deliverables, provide quality assurance.

From May 2001 until April 2002 I worked as a project leader for the KBC account where I was involved on a project in close collaboration with the Clearing & Settlement department of KBC Bank and the new pan-European exchange ?Euronext'.

To modernize the Euronext Group's clearing facilities and to unify the clearing systems of the various markets, Euronext decided to equip its Clearnet subsidiary with the Clearing 21 system. Clearing 21 was designed and developed jointly by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the New York Mercantile Exchange. Both CME an NYMEX use Clearing 21 to clear derivatives trades. In a technology swap, CME has provided Euronext with Clearing 21, Euronext on the other hand provided CME with the NSC trading system. Euronext made some enhancements after which Euronext's version of Clearing 21 could handle both the clearing of derivatives as well as cash-market instruments listed on Euronext's regulated markets.

The bank's main objectives were to:

• Implement an access to the Clearing 21 platform to perform clearing activities in real/best time.
• Remain a prominent Clearing Member Firm within Belgium.
• Offer clearing activities for all its customers on all three market-segments: Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.

Tasks & responsibilities:

• Investigate the impact of such reorganization for the bank's Back-Office systems and daily operations.
• Interact with the customer to gain an understanding of the business environment, the technical context, and its (organizational) strategic direction.
• Collect, identify and define the business and ICT requirements.
• Define project scope, plans and deliverables.
• Prepare and work out decision on chosen access method towards C21 platform.
• Prepare and elaborate backup configuration solution.
• File and follow up order forms for Euronext hard- & software.
• Prepare, organize and coordinate the migration towards the C21 clearing platform.
• Prepare functional, technical and organizational documentation relating to the migration.
• Coordinate/supervise/follow-up all running sub-projects.
• Control technical installation on site.
• Organize individual and general testing, i.e. preparation and follow-up test plan, test design, tests procedure and test status report.
• Analyze, identify and resolve new occurring business/system problems avoiding any interference with the daily Back-Office operations while minimizing nuisance for the bank's customers.
• Optimize processes and procedures once all changes were implemented.
• Setup and organize members' training for C21 workstations.
• Prepare and follow-up project status reports.
• Act as a single point of contact for Clearnet's Corporate Customer Service, the bank's Business and ICT department and all other external parties to define common issues
• Act problem solving.

From January 2001 until May 2001 I worked as a project leader for the KBC account on a project for the Euro conversion. I was responsible for the preparation and re-engineering of the bank's Back-Office systems to smoothen the conversion planned on the 31st of December 2001. The purpose was to re-engineer those systems that automatically created IN-currency accounts and to block them from doing so in the future in order not to complicate and/or disrupt the planned conversion.

From April 2000 until January 2001 I worked as a business analyst on a project within the Back-Office department of the KBC Bank for securities handling. It was my responsibility to:

• Describe the overall structure of each subsection within this department.
• Describe the roles and responsibilities within the different subsections.
• Map and, if necessary, change the current business processes.
• Search for structural & operational problems and insufficiencies, as well as to provide solutions to this.
• Define mission statement(s).

Purpose:

To improve overall work efficiency, to reduce the existing backlog, to improve the daily workload, to save Full Time Equivalents, to employ FTEs where needed, to improve overall job satisfaction, etc.

From December 1999 until April 2000 I worked as a business analyst for the KBC account to write a technical system documentation for the bank's professional banking application (IBS). It provides Application Managers and Functional Support Teams, in charge of the foreign branches, the basic technical information to perform their duties.