Callataÿ & Wouters jointly secured the deal with its partner Logica after surpassing leading industry vendors during the selection process. Building on the existing relationship with Banque de La Poste, which has been using Thaler along with in-house built software for more than 10 years, Callataÿ & Wouters will now provide the bank with an integrated end to end flexible platform to replace the existing systems.

Founded in 1995 from a joint partnership between La Poste and Fortis Bank, Banque de La Poste is an established Belgian bank with over 1.2 million customers and more than 650 branches across the country. Banque de La Poste offers a wide range of retail services including current accounts, savings & investment products and insurance.

To further enhance the security and accessibility of its system and to improve the consistency of its clients' experiences, Banque de La Poste was looking for a solution able to replace the existing systems and provide an end-to-end integrated platform. To meet these requirements, Callataÿ & Wouters and Logica will jointly implement Thaler on SAP including the customer management, deposits, securities, payments, e-banking, branch interfaces and SAP Accounting & Business Intelligence modules. As part of the implementation process, Callataÿ & Wouters and Logica will also work with Banque de La Poste to establish new and more cost-efficient banking best practices. In addition, Callataÿ & Wouters' strong presence in Belgium means that through its extensive regional knowledge and deep understanding of local regulations Thaler on SAP can also better address existing and upcoming Belgian regulatory requirements.

Banque de La Poste selected Callataÿ & Wouters on the strength of the existing relationship with the vendor in June 2009 after a thorough seven month selection process. The bank is scheduled to go live with Thaler on SAP in Q1 2011.

Thaler is a scalable core banking system that includes functionality for deposits, loans, securities, treasury and payments as well as multi-channel distribution modules. It is designed to run either as an end-to-end solution, covering the entire range of core banking activities, or on a modular basis to support individual lines of business. Deployed on the SAP NetWeaver tech¬nology platform, Thaler adopts an enterprise service-oriented architecture offering the ability to integrate with third party solutions, and the ability to add a broad range of features and functionalities. Completely preconfigured and easy to implement, this powerful solution can support a wide range of client prefer¬ences and investment choices. SAP and Callataÿ & Wouters bring together the strength of SAP's flexible and agile platform and analytical banking solutions along with the expertise and capabilities of Callataÿ & Wouters, providing banks with a solid IT foundation.

Marc Van der Schueren, Managing Director, COO, Banque de La Poste, commented: "In Callataÿ & Wouters and its partners we found the right support to move our banking operations to new efficiency levels. For Banque de La Poste this project is first and foremost a way of re-thinking our approach to core banking: Callataÿ & Wouters and Logica will help us re-define best practice and business process methodology. We are confident that Thaler on SAP will dramatically reduce our cost of ownership allowing us to invest resources more effectively."

Marc De Groote, CEO, Callataÿ & Wouters, adds: "We are very pleased that our long-standing relationship with Banque de La Poste is evolving to encompass new and more advanced software solutions. With the support of our tried and tested partnership approach, we can deliver to large postal banks such as Banque de La Poste a single platform able to address their needs of handling a large number of accounts and quickly react to market changes with new and innovative product offerings."