Finibanco and IBM Sign Services Contract

Finibanco and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a 10-year services contract. IBM will manage Finibanco's core banking information infrastructure, providing the bank with more efficient and effective IT services, and reducing costs. Finibanco is a player in the Portuguese private banking sector.

The new contract gives IBM responsibility for the operation, management and administration of a significant part of the bank infrastructure, the hardware and software supporting Finibanco's critical applications, as well as related business recovery and continuity services. The infrastructure platform supports the core bank legacy applications and new Services Orientated Architecture.

The agreement is part of Finibanco's technology optimization strategy and will allow the bank to focus on high-priority areas, such as the implementation of a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) awarded to IBM in the past year, and provide greater value to customers with increased efficiency.

"Our project is focused on satisfaction for Finibanco's clients, employees and stakeholders. To accomplish this, we need to invest in the optimization of our resources and management. IBM has proved to be the right partner to support the bank in this task, not only for the mutual trust both institutions have earned in the past few years, but also for IBM's proven innovative competencies," says Armando Esteves, Finibanco Administrator.

From a business transformation scope, IBM services will allow the bank to:

Obtain a more rationalized IT cost structure, with an expected
significant reduction in costs over the next 10 years.
Be more agile as it scales up for expected growth in the business.
Benefit from a wide and advanced range of IT management processes which would be expensive to implement individually.
Finibanco S.A. is part of the Portuguese Finibanco Holding SGPS, in the Vicaima Group. The bank has a network of 120 branches and focuses mostly on the retail banking sector.

"Banks are faced with the challenge of updating legacy core banking systems in response to regulatory, competitive and cost pressures," said José Joaquim de Oliveira, Country General Manager, IBM Portugal. "We are pleased to team with Finibanco to accelerate the transformation of their core banking systems and help them meet their cost reduction and profit objectives."

IBM and Finibanco have a strong on-going relationship. IBM has been the major supplier of Finibanco's IT infrastructure since the bank was established in 1993.

The agreement was signed in October 2006, and work on the project is already in progress.