Deliver Your News to the World

China Minsheng Banking Corporation Selects Accenture and SAP to Lead Technology Transformation


WEBWIRE

BEIJING, China - November 28, 2005 - China Minsheng Banking Corporation Limited (CMBC), Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and SAP China, a subsidiary of SAP AG (NYSE: SAP), today announced an agreement to cooperate in building a world-class core banking system for CMBC. The agreement was formalized at a signing ceremony in Beijing, China. The implementation of the core banking solution by Accenture and SAP is part of the bank’s efforts to transform its operations and prepare for future growth.

Established approximately 10 years ago, CMBC is the first privately owned nationwide commercial bank in China and its founders consist mainly of non-state-owned enterprises. CMBC’s reforms to its IT systems, which have been closely watched by the financial services industry in China, include taking the lead in achieving data centralization beginning in 2001, undertaking its “Eight Grand Projects” and related change management programs at the end of 2002 and implementing a centralized operation processing system and process reengineering in 2004. Today’s announcement demonstrates that CMBC, a corporation that believes in the vital role of transformation and innovation in maintaining rapid business growth, is committed to continuing to take a leading role in the industry by being one of the first Chinese banks to standardize its core banking system.

CMBC decided to transform its current core banking system to help fulfill its growing business needs. After careful consideration and evaluation, CMBC chose Accenture and SAP to revamp the bank’s software systems. CMBC expects that the SAP implementation will assist the bank in achieving its growth ambitions and respond to market demands as the Chinese financial market deregulates. CMBC aims to set up a service-oriented banking system architecture—a system designed to enable the bank to accelerate the development and launch of new products and to provide the bank with strong technical support in serving its rapidly growing customer base.

“CMBC competes in a banking environment that is increasingly open, international and compliant with global standards and practices,” said Han Wei Xi, general manager for IT at CMBC. “We wanted to choose internationally renowned solution providers and implementers that have a strong reputation, deep experience, ability to manage risks and deliver on a long-term partnership and with an excellent track record for delivery. Our final decision to choose the plan jointly proposed by Accenture and SAP was based on these criteria. We will leverage the opportunities created by this transition to further strengthen our business capabilities, enhance our performance and build a solid core operation system platform that will enable us to grow into a recognized industry leader and a competitive bank on a global scale.”

By implementing the SAP for Banking solution, Accenture and SAP will help this leading Chinese commercial bank continue to drive advancement and innovation in the industry. The solution—which includes deposit and loans, treasury management and general ledger processing functionalities along with a front-end solution for tellers—is designed to enable CMBC to manage all transactions through one integrated system. The software will help CMBC streamline its operations, better manage costs, increase profitability and reduce operational risk. As part of its standard core banking software for CMBC, SAP will incorporate localized functionality specific to deposits and loans in China. SAP for Banking will also enable CMBC to more effectively satisfy the demands of China’s banking industry laws and regulations.

“CMBC is taking a lead role in transforming China’s banking industry by industrializing its processes to become more competitive with both foreign and domestic banking leaders,” said Jean-Marc Ollagnier, global managing partner for Accenture’s Financial Services Solution group. “By starting this implementation now, CMBC will be putting itself ahead of the game by updating and streamlining its core banking system onto one robust platform.”

“By selecting SAP and Accenture, CMBC demonstrates the increasing demand for banks in Asia Pacific and worldwide to standardize their core banking processes,” said Thomas Balgheim, senior vice president, Financial Services, SAP AG. “SAP for Banking will enable CMBC’s processes to be efficient, flexible and scalable.”

About China Minsheng Banking Corporation Limited
Company Profile

Founded on January 12, 1996 in Beijing, China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd. (“Minsheng”) is the first national joint-stock commercial bank in China with stocks mainly held by non-state-owned enterprises. It is also a standard joint-stock financial institution set up strictly in accordance with the Company Law and the Commercial Bank Law, which distinguishes itself significantly from state-owned banks and other Chinese banks. Minsheng has been well known to domestic and overseas financial markets. Since its establishment 10 years ago, Minsheng achieved a rapid growth on its assets and profit while its asset quality being controlled at a very low level.

Minsheng listed it’s A-shares(600016) at the Shanghai Stock Exchange on December 19, 2000 where Minsheng issued RMB 4 billion of convertible corporate bonds on March 18, 2003. On November 8, 2004, Minsheng successfully issued RMB 5.8 billion of subordinated bonds in inter-bank bond market where Minsheng is the first commercial bank that issued subordinated bonds by private placement. Minsheng’s achievement has been further enhanced on October 26, 2005 when it became the first commercial bank that accomplished the shares merger reform and established a successful model in China’s capital market reform.

Since its listing at Shanghai, Minsheng has explored and accumulated valuable experience on company’s reform, development and management by following a management principal of Unity and Striving, Exploration and Innovation, Cultivation of Talents; Strict Management, Normative Operation, Career Dedication with Law Rein; Quality Focusing, Efficiency Upgrading and Healthy Development. Minsheng has centralized its business processing system and adopted a net profit-oriented performance appraisal and motivation mechanism for each business unit. It also attracted and retained many talent staff by enhancing its motivation system through a project named Three Cards, including salary, benefit, and training, which maintained Minsheng one of the most attractive employers. The independent credit assessment framework also contributed to the low NPL ratio. Apart from these, Minsheng has upgraded its business operations in eight areas it identified important to its growth and development. Recently, Minsheng started to adopt SBU mechanism at its important business lines. In a word, Minsheng achieved its strategic target of Low Risk, Rapid Growth and High Profit, and emerged as a vigorous and dynamic young bank.

As to date, Minsheng has a total assets, total deposits and total loans (including bills discounted) of RMB 500 billion, 400 billion and 300 billion respectively, while the NPL ratio being effectively achieved under 2%, one of the lowest in China.

Minsheng has established 20 main branches in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Dalian, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chongqing, Xi’an, Fuzhou, Ji’nan, Taiyuan, Shijiazhuang, Chengdu, Ningbo, Tianjin, Kunming, Quanzhou and Suzhou, and a direct-reporting sub-branch in Shantou, Guangdong province. It has an aggregate of banking outlets of more than 200 and also has correspondent relationship with 749 overseas banks in 78 nations and regions.

In April 2002, Minsheng was ranked No.6 in the Top 10 Chinese Blue Chips elected in compliance with the international prevailing standards.

In June 2003, in the 2001 China’s Top 50 Listed Firms by the Listed Companies magazine, Minsheng upgraded to No.8 from No. 13 in 2000.

In 2003, Minsheng was ranked as No.3 most competitive listed companies in China by the Global Competitiveness Organization.

In 2004, Minsheng was ranked as No. 18 most dynamic Chinese enterprise and awarded the 2004 China’s 100 Most Dynamic Enterprise.

In July 2004, The Bankers of the United Kingdom ranked Minsheng No. 310 of top 1000 banks worldwidely in terms of core capital and other indicators.

In 2005, a financial magazine in Beijing, Chinese Banker, ranked Minsheng No.2 most competitive banks. Minsheng also was awarded No.1 asset quality, human resources management and corporate governance, No.2 financial innovation and service quality, and No.3 IT and internal control.

According to The Bankers of the United Kingdom in 2005, Minsheng was ranked No.28 of top 200 Asian banks in terms of total assets.

Accenture and SAP Alliance
In September 2003, SAP and Accenture entered into an alliance for the financial services industry, offering banks and insurance providers a more effective and lower-risk way to help them transform and grow their business, through a dedicated joint development team and sales channel, integrated solutions and services, innovative delivery, and highly efficient implementation. With a long history and experience delivering innovative business solutions for more than 1000 leading financial services institutions, Accenture and SAP work together to help insurers and banks achieve the vision of an open standards-based architecture.

About SAP for Banking
SAP for Banking is an industry solution that combines mySAP™ Business Suite solutions and tailored functionality to meet the unique demands of financial institutions. With more than 600 customers in 60 countries worldwide, SAP for Banking provides an integrated set of tools and automated processes to manage every aspect of the front- and back-office banking environment—from high-volume transactional banking processes and customer relationship management to financial accounting, cost controlling and profitability and risk analysis. Based on the open architecture of the SAP NetWeaver® integration and application platform, SAP for Banking helps companies expertly manage transactions and relationships across the institution to quickly identify and exploit market opportunities and easily tailor new products to the specific needs of individual customers. (Additional information at http://www.sap.com/banking)

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills, and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 123,000 people in 48 countries, the company generated net revenues of US $15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2005. For more information, visit www.accenture.com.

About SAP
SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software solutions*. Today, more than 29,800 customers in over 120 countries run more than 100,600 installations of SAP® software—from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite solutions for global organizations. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver® platform to drive innovation and enable business change, mySAP™ Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. SAP industry solutions support the unique business processes of more than 25 industry segments, including high tech, retail, public sector and financial services. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol “SAP.” (Additional information at http://www.sap.com)

(*) SAP defines business software solutions as comprising enterprise resource planning and related software solutions such as supply chain management, customer relationship management, product life-cycle management and supplier relationship management.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

Copyright © 2005 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.



WebWireID6113





This news content was configured by WebWire editorial staff. Linking is permitted.

News Release Distribution and Press Release Distribution Services Provided by WebWire.