The latest news on digital product and service offerings in wealth management.

Avaloq, IBM
IBM, the global consultancy and technology firm, and banking software group Avaloq, have agreed to jointly build a private “Swiss Banking Cloud”, a move that will see certain Avaloq staff switch to the other business.

Under the arrangement, Avaloq's IT service delivery model will use IBM’s infrastructure as a service offering.

The deal means IBM will provide to Avaloq private cloud infrastructure services in Switzerland as well as access to its global cloud resources and capabilities as part of a hybrid cloud environment.

Avaloq employees operating its data centers in Zurich and Lugano will join IBM in the existing locations. The private cloud infrastructure and the new operating model will be fully compliant with the Swiss legal & regulatory requirements applicable to banks and leveraging IBM’s global best practices, Avaloq said in a statement yesterday.

"We have engaged IBM to help us accelerate the transformation of our IT operating model. IBM is our partner of choice due to their proven experience in the financial industry as well as their ability to support us around the world in a consistent and compliant way,” Jürg Hunziker, Avaloq Group CEO, said.  

The cloud will be ready for taking on board Avaloq Saas (software-as-a-service) and BPaaS (business processing-as-a-service) clients in Switzerland in the second half of this year. The migration of Avaloq's existing clients to the new platform will take place in the first half of next year.