IBM Belgium, which seems increasingly interested in devolving many of its activities into small, specialised joint ventures in vertical markets, has set up one such a project with the Bank Degroof for Belgium and Luxemburg. Finance Technology SA/NV, which will be based in Brussels with an office in the Grand Duchy to follow, has been established to develop a modular suite of banking software aimed at all applications in the small to medium banking sector – that is banks with total staff of fewer than 1,000 people. The software will be designed specifically to run on the AS/400. The new company is capitalised at just under $3m, with equal participation between IBM and Bank Degroof. The soft ware will be ready for marketing through the IBM sales force some time next year, says a spokeswoman, and the 30 employed at Finance Technology will offer consultancy to the banking sector.
