IBM and Norkom Technologies sign agreement with VTB

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First joint customer win in Russia signifies continued expansion in emerging markets

20 September 2010 – Moscow, Russia – Bank VTB has signed an agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to provide the bank with an integrated anti-money laundering system, based on solution from Norkom Technologies (AIM: NORK.L). The new system will help the bank better manage risks associated with suspicious transactions.

The project will be developed and implemented by IBM Global Business Services and Norkom Technologies.

As Russia’s leading bank in terms of the number of transactions with international contractors, VTB Bank takes the issues of money laundering and illicit funding very seriously. Traditionally, the bank handled the management of anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing using separate, siloed systems, which created numerous inefficiencies. In an effort to address this issue, the bank decided to introduce a system built on a single IT infrastructure and compliant with international standards.

VTB Bank announced a tender and received 15 bids from the world's leading companies. Then, after a pilot system implementation project, the bank opted for an integrated solution offered by IBM and Norkom. The new IBM and Norkom system ensures complex transaction monitoring and system integration with bank storage databases and the bank's centralized IT infrastructure.

Today’s announcement is timely in light of the tough stance that Russia is currently taking on money laundering. The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, recently signed a new law that aims to bring Russian banking legislation into line with recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). This new legislation, which is effective from January 2011, adds to the list of crimes that can be construed as the financing of terrorism and introduces the requirement for closer monitoring of any transactions involving a party from a country that does not comply with recommendations set by FATF. Additionally, financial institutions will be prohibited from revealing to their clients the measures they take to prevent money laundering and the new law will introduce warnings for anyone who breaks the legislation.

Filip Verbeke, Sales Manager for Central and Eastern Europe and Germanics, says, “We are thrilled to announce VTB as our first joint Russian client with IBM. With Norkom’s risk-based approach to financial compliance, VTB Bank will be able to target investigative resources where it delivers greatest value and reduce the occurrence of time-costly false positives, enhancing the effectiveness of its financial crime management and protecting it from the financial and reputational risks associated with money laundering and criminal activities”.

“In the new era of financial reform, banking and financial institutions will continue to see increased oversight of potential money laundering activities,” said Shanker Ramamurthy, IBM General Manager of Global Banking and Financial Markets. “Smarter Banking is about applying the strategic use of technology to help banks comply with the new regulations and provide the flexibility to adapt as the regulatory environment matures and stabilizes. We hope to build on our AML work with Norkom to help other leading banks in global, growth markets gain more visibility and accuracy into their risk and compliance efforts.”

Norkom Anti-Money Laundering (AML) is an industry-leading software solution designed to reduce risks related to money laundering and other financial crimes.

For integration of Norkom AML system and the bank's corporate database, the following software products are used: IBM Infosphere DataStage and IBM Infosphere Information Analyzer. IBM InfoSphere DataStage is used for data integration between the Norkom system and the bank's information systems. This product collects the necessary information about banking operations and delivers it to the Norkom system for monitoring and analysis of suspicious activities. IBM Information Analyzer analyzes the structure of the sources of data collected by Norkom and detects discrepancies, duplicates and missing pieces of important information before it is fed into the Norkom system.