Bank Degroof Petercam accelerates its digital transition

Beyond digital

The banking environment is in permanent evolution and must constantly adapt to new regulations. Above all, the desire to live up to its clients’ expectations has motivated Degroof Petercam to invest in a transition that goes beyond simple digitization. The aim has been both to rationalize and centralize IT activities and to outsource part of its operations in order to refocus on the needs of its customers.

Infrastructure, architecture and new business

"The transformation project consists of three phases: infrastructure implementation, architecture development and delivery of new business. The first phase was completed last year with the help of Proximus and its subsidiary Telindus Luxembourg."

"The second phase of the project has already made good progress and concerns the development of a new IT architecture that will ensure a scalable and sustainable digital environment."

"The third phase of this transformation will be dedicated to data. The bank wants to use the collected data for reporting in order to offer new solutions to its customers," Bert Verhoeven, Head of IT Infrastructure & Operations, explains.

Thierry Bousez, Service Account Manager for Proximus Luxembourg.

Track your investments at any time

This all started in 2018-2019 with a change in our customers' behavior. "Previously, our clients met with their relationship manager once a week or month to follow up on their portfolio. Today, in addition to having the same consultation functionalities that retail banks offer with access to their investments at any time, our clients also want to benefit from a more extensive digital offering. We had to make sure we could offer them new types of services that lived up to their expectations," Bert recalled.

Investing in regional offices

Alongside this digitization and the availability of efficient remote tools, Petercam Degroof also believes it is important to continue to hold physical meetings to maintain close contact with clients. "We have opened new offices and expanded our existing branches by adopting a phygital model with new business tools that give our clients a choice in how they want to interact with their financial manager," said Bert.

Bert Verhoeven, Head of IT Infrastructure & Operations at Degroof Petercam

SD-WAN, the must for flexibility

Hybrid work meant that the need for bandwidth would become apparent. Petercam Degroof has opted for SD-WAN, which improves resource utilization so that multi-site deployments use bandwidth more efficiently. That way, the investment house gains agility and flexibility, while also reducing its operating costs. "It's a great solution, for example if we need to run a webinar with our customers and need very high capacity at specific times."

Timing met despite the health crisis

Telindus was selected as partner for the ICT infrastructure and associated managed services. NRB played a role in the IT infrastructure replacement, but Telindus took the project to heart. Despite the difficulties inherent to the health crisis, the planned timing was respected. The operation was carried out in total transparency for the Degroof Petercam teams in Belgium and Luxembourg.

This project required switching from a decentralized infrastructure to a cloud-based centralized model. But also a transition within the team. "Telindus was in charge of the operational management of the infrastructure and so we reoriented our employees and got support for this," Bert recalled, who is very happy with how well the teams have understood each other. "This outsourcing project also allows us to move to a more environmentally sustainable solution by converting our systems to a state-of-the-art green server farm," Bert added.

Transparency and total trust

Working in full collaboration, in complete transparency and in total confidence is not something you can improvise. "In addition to the architectures, we have managed to achieve excellent and fluid interactions, thus allowing us to invest in the customer's business. That is important. In short, to train and make our employees aware of the specificities of a financial group," explains Thierry Bousez, Service Account Manager for Telindus Luxembourg.

A human adventure

Starting from an infrastructure course, they have now moved on to a business project. The collaboration has become a true partnership. "Beyond a purely IT project, our teams are engaged in a real human adventure,” Thierry concluded.