SunGard in deal with Spanish bank association

SunGard Trading and Risk Systems, based in New York, today announced that it has licensed its market and credit risk management system, Panorama, to the Confederacion Española de Cajas de Ahorros (CECA), an association representing Spain’s 47 savings banks. CECA members account for 42% of total lending by banks in Spain, and 53% of deposits and mortgage lending.

First reported in Risk magazine in September, the move marks another step in a developing market for SunGard – selling its investment bank-grade risk systems to quasi-governmental bodies. In June, SunGard licensed Panorama to Kommunivest Cooperative Society, a Swedish local government funding agency. In September, SunGard licensed Panorama to Eksportfinans, the Norwegian government’s export credit agency. A spokesperson at SunGard said that the company is not explicitly targeting public entities. Rather, the spokesperson said, saturation in SunGard’s original market for risk technology among investment banks has prompted the company to expand its market to buy-side users of all types.

Though the terms of the agreement were not disclosed, according to Clare Porter, vice president of strategic marketing for Panorama in London, the deal is a win for the application service provider (ASP) business model at SunGard. Panorama will be installed and centrally operated from CECA’s headquarters in Madrid for online connection by 36 CECA member banks. Porter says this arrangement, in effect a mini-ASP, will reduce the burden on the individual user banks by centralizing technological and risk management expertise in CECA’s Madrid headquarters.

Only a few of CECA’s banks had risk management systems prior to the deal, which Porter said would allow CECA’s participating banks to better compete on the European market.

Future deals in which SunGard can tap into multiple users with a single licensing agreement seem unlikely, however. Porter said there were few if any other organizations like CECA elsewhere in Europe.