Bank Austria Creditanstalt
Capgemini Supports Bank Austria Creditanstalt in Successful Merger and the Bank Becomes a Key Player in the Croatian Market.
Client Profile
Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA) is the largest bank in Austria, with total assets of approxi-mately EUR 137 billion. Four out of five large companies and 20 percent of private individuals in Austria are customers of Bank Austria Creditanstalt. BA-CA serves approximately 5.8 million customers with 28,000 employees in more than 1,300 branches in Austria and CEE. As a member of HVB Group, one of the leading European banking Groups, BA-CA has responsibility for the region of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Over many years the bank has built its leading position in this most important growth market in Europe.
Its CEE network now comprises 900 offices in 11 countries. 17,000 employees serve 4 million customers. With total assets of EUR 23 billion in CEE, BA-CA is one of the largest international network banks in the region.
Business Issues
Following its expansion strategy BA-CA acquired Splitska Banka in Croatia in April 2002. Splitska Banka is a universal bank serving both corporate customers and retail clients. The country’s third-largest bank is the leading financial institution in Dalmatia. As HVB group had already an operation in Croatia with its subsidiary HVB Croatia, the decision was to merge Splitska Banka with HVB Croatia. Setting itself very ambitious objectives, BA-CA was confronted with one of the most challenging CEE mergers in its history. The technical, business and legal merger should be completed within one year, covering all aspects in banking. Two cultures had to be analysed and merged. New business process models had to be implemented, gaps in the IT system needed to be identified, implemented and tested and morethan 1,000 employees had to be trained within several months on different IT systems. Additionally, the geographical distance between the two headquarters – HVB Croatia HQ being located in Zagreb and Splitska Banka HQ in Split – had to be managed.
Solution
Capgemini was chosen as consulting partner for the integration due to its vast merger experience, the offered methodology and experts as well as its wide project experience in Central and Eastern Europe. The program was structured into a preparation phase, where both banks were analyzed, and the integration implementation phase. Both phases werebased on four major streams: Business transformation, Operations & IT integration, Change management, Program management.
In all streams staff of BA-CA, the local banks, the system provider and Capgemini worked together in a successful partnership.
13 business areas were set up to define the processes, products and organization for the future merged business and to prepare the legal and IT merger. Core02 (BA-CA´s standard core banking package for CEE)was selected as common IT solution for the new bank.