The Customer:

A leading central bank in Latin America

The Challenge:

The central bank, as part of the restructuring of the financial services industry, had decided to merge three loss-making financial entities of a leading banking group. The challenge was to merge the accounts and operations of the merging institutions into those of the parent bank and its associate banks, with maximum retention of accounts, and without any loss of confidence of the public in the merged entity itself.

While the bank initiated preliminary steps, it commissioned i-flex as its consultant to facilitate the merger process with least hinderance.

i-flex's consultancy was expected to institutionalize the merger process as the central bank proposed to direct a few more banks to merge to form a strong financial entity.

Recommended Solution:

As consultants, i-flex provided assistance in the following areas:

	providing technological and business expertise in the areas of product mapping, general ledger mapping, merger accounting, automated and semi-automated accounts conversion, conversion-verification process and post-merger customer management
	providing expert assistance in the legal and commercial negotiations in the merger
	recommending a generally accepted accounting process of the merging and the merged institutions
	drawing up a granular plan for all activities of the merger
	identifying the task dependencies, staffing requirements, risks and risk mitigation for the various tasks and stages in the merger project
	identification of management issues, highlighting the management control points and project monitoring throughout the duration of the project
	educating the bank's staff on the activities they are entrusted with in the merger and providing the interface for inter-departmental issues on the merger
	playing the role of catalyst for change management of the merged entities

Customer Benefits:

	firm, clear, date-wise plan with effective management control: result is that the merger was successful on the chosen date with no problems
	effective control on all risks associated with the merger
	significant reduction in effort required in terms of costs and time
	higher confidence levels among the customers and regulatory authorities
	very minimal disturbance to customer service
	impact on the merger capability of the bank. Satisfied with the methodology suggested by i-flex, and with the confidence gained, the central bank directed another bank to merge
	effective transfer of management technology in the aspects of visualizing and managing a bank merger - at all levels of the bank's hierarchy