Fortis Expands Risque Deployment

BRUSSELS—Fortis, a Benelux-based financial services provider, is expanding its use of Sophis Risque to manage all its credit derivatives positions, replacing an internally developed legacy system, officials at Fortis tell DWT.

The new deal between Fortis, headquartered in Brussels, and Sophis, a Paris-based vendor of cross-asset, front-to- back-office solutions, will cover single-name, credit default swaps (CDS) transactions as well as instruments such as equity, credit and rate-related structured products. Approximately 10 users in the front-office are expected to deploy the new solution, with an undisclosed number of other users located in the middle- and back-offices.

"The relationship between Fortis and Sophis dates back almost 10 years," says Pierre Amron, head of credit derivatives, structured credit group at the Merchant Banking division of Fortis Bank. "Fortis made the choice to use Sophis for its equity derivatives business," he adds. "Two years ago, Fortis expanded this deal to cover commodities," says Emmanuel Fruchard, director of fixed income and credit professional services at Sophis.

In the equity derivatives and commodities divisions of Fortis, Risque has been deployed globally, Amron says. "All trading floors in New York, Hong Kong and Brussels are using Risque," Amron tells DWT. Traders in New York, for example, use remote connections via Citrix to access Risque, Fruchard says.

While Fortis investigated Sophis' competitors, the two eventually signed a deal in the last quarter of 2005.

Fortis stated its specifications in August 2005, according to a Sophis spokesperson. "The development started during the first week of January," says Amron. The implementation is expected to take one year, with the first products, starting with CDSes, being delivered in May. "By that time, we will have the basic bricks of the business live," he adds. Fortis will be using version five of the Risque solution.

A team of Sophis employees and consultants is guiding the deployment. "It's an ambitious project, as we did not limit ourselves to the front office but chose straight through processing instead," Amron says.

The new system is expected to be faster and more robust than the incumbent internally developed legacy solution, Amron says. "The system will also be compatible with our existing infrastructure," he adds.

In another announcement, Fortis is extending its electronic trading services with RTS Realtime Systems Group, a German vendor of options and futures trading software. Fortis is adding to its electronic trading services eRTD, RTS' Internet-based trading platform built with a Java front end. The front end provides connectivity to major European, U.S. and Asian cash and derivative exchanges, according to officials at Fortis.

Fruchard does not rule out an extension of the deal to cover fixed-income and foreign exchange (FX) trading operations.