| Headline: S1 builds European banks’ internet platforms Source: Euromoney Date: December 2000 Author: Peter Lee If banking continue to migrate onto the internet at its present speed, it’s anyone’s guess which banks or new entrants to financial services, will eventually stand victorious. But one likely winner is S1, a Nasdaq-quoted company that claims to be the world leader in providing software, consulting and hosting services for banks and financial services companies seeking to establish themselves on the internet. It offers banks a classic outsourcing proposition: don’t go to your own overworked in-house IT people to create your web-presence, come to a specialist company, with top-quality technicians and designers to build your platform for you. It’s a proposition that has won over 33 of the top 100 financial institutions in the US, including Bank of America and Chase Manhattan and is now being put to European banks, following the launch in November of S1 Europe. The firm is already working on projects for ABN Amro and for Zurich Financial Services, which has taken a minority equity stake in S1. Other European customers included Crédit Lyonnais, BNP and Coutts. What makes Daniel Drechsel, European CEO, hopeful is a divided European banking market structure, with large banks that dominate domestically and yet have very little presence in neighbouring countries. |