RZB went live with The Wall Street System treasury engine in the front office on 7 April 2003 - only seven months after the contracts were signed. The back office was the last to go live at the bank's HQ in Vienna, on 18 August.

The bank - the central institution of the Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group - is also among the first Wall Street Systems customers to go live with the Interest Rate Derivatives (IRD) module, covering option pricing, market data capture and analysis, risk management and portfolio management.

Armin Steppan, global treasurer, RZB, says Wall Street Systems was selected from a shortlist of nine vendors.

"Two years ago, it became clear that we would soon outgrow our existing set-up of six treasury and trading systems - some acquired and others developed in-house," he says. "Our objective was to implement a treasury management system to improve capacity and functionality, handle the complexity of managing transaction flows and risk across diverse portfolios, geographies, and regulatory environments, and support the introduction of new products."

The bank is now using the FX, currency options, money markets, exchange
traded futures and options and IRD modules in the front offices at its headquarters in Vienna, and is able to trade both vanilla and exotic options on a single platform. Additional middle and back office modules, including value at risk, counterparty credit, confirmations, settlement and accounting, have also been installed.

"We have been able to make a significant change to our technical infrastructure within a very short time frame," says Steppan. "We are already reaping the considerable STP benefits offered by an integrated, global treasury system."

Work will now commence on the rollout to RZB's London office and its network of 14 banks throughout Central and Eastern Europe.