Information technology

Total IT costs are allocated to business segments. The IT sector, therefore, does not have its own financial statements.

In 2012, NLB again maintained a high on-line availability rate of 99.88%, compared with 99.82% in 2011. There was an increase in announced changes (of 0.04%), in part due to a larger number of technical upgrades than the previous year and due to the fact that more than 590 changes were made in application systems.

The main focus of development was on solutions to improve automated controls in the investment approval process for corporate and retail customers, the establishment of collateral records together with activities to support the purging of existing data and the improved integration of systems.

Retail banking receives stable support, in the scope of which 40 new major functionalities were introduced. The Bank automated and introduced a comprehensive process for approving investments for retail customers. The security of e-banking for retail customers was upgraded with the introduction of SMSnotification. Worthy of note in the payment card segment is the establishment of new support relating to the introduction of installment payments, while the Bank began with activities for the transition to contactless operations. Due to changes on the market of suppliers of POS equipment, activities were also aimed at certifying the POS PCI 2.0 of two suppliers.

The main activities in the corporate banking segment were linked to the automation of the loan approval process with the aim of increasing built-in controls in the POND and T24 systems, and integration with business intelligence solutions in the data warehouse. The Bank upgraded its collateral management system, and linked it to the loan approval and reporting systems and to new support for the issuing of mortgage and municipal bonds. Worthy of note in terms of significant changes is the beginning of preparations for the upgrading of the T24-R8 T24-R12 version and the associated migration to a web interface, both of which will facilitate the further upgrading of key functionalities of the T24 system.

Solutions to support payment systems are functioning stably, while the Bank has successfully achieved the majority of its objectives from the migration to SEPA payments. With regard to contractual obligations in the repayment of guaranteed deposits, the Bank developed a solution for effective non-cash and cash payments. It also developed a standard solution for upgrading payment systems in which payments are executed on the basis of thirdparty authorizations.

The reduced volume of trading on the financial markets has allowed the bank to re-analyze the processes, technologies and support used in securities trading. The Bank also adopted a decision to introduce new support that will replace several solutions over two years, resulting in the improved rationalization of costs and the increased efficiency of processes and controls. One of the key activities in terms of financial markets is the development of a solution for issuing municipal and mortgage bonds, which will allow the Bank to secure additional sources of funding on the basis of the aforementioned instrument.

The data warehouse remains a crucial element of the Bank’s information system, which underwent several upgrades in 2012 to ensure data for managing all types of risks, to ensure a comprehensive approach to money laundering, to calculate the total exposure of groups of customers and the collateral associated with their investments, and to determine exposure to banks and banking groups. Reporting control procedures for NLB Group banks were automated in association with the solution to support consolidation via the Cognos system, while business intelligence procedures were improved with the use of an accelerator for making inquiries from the data warehouse: IDAA – IBM DB2 Analytics Accelerator.

The emphasis in terms of the e-archiving of documentation was on the rationalization of paper operations at branches and the introduction of e-archiving for the documentation of corporate customers. Activities continued in the IT infrastructure aimed at the consolidation and virtualization of the server infrastructure, while the firewall was upgraded. IP telephony was introduced and a system for the uniform handling of system audit trails from all platforms was installed. Also worthy of noting was the purchase of disk arrays and active equipment for the core computer network, and all preparatory steps required to begin the upgrading of the core computer center. The aforementioned upgrading of the IT infrastructure will improve the reliability of the functioning of the data center at the primary and back-up locations in the long-term.

The Bank regularly updates its business continuity plan and IT support recovery procedures, and tests them on a regular basis. More active control over the testing of IT support recovery procedures at NLB Group companies was carried out in 2012, for which a standard methodology was developed and introduced.

L also continued in 2012 with its more active role in guiding information technology activities within NLB Group. In terms of the infrastructure, the joint use of the SWIFT infrastructure was introduced, while several challenges remain in terms of e-mail.