(openPR) - Hong Kong & Luxembourg, 22 January 2008 – FERNBACH, a leading international provider of solutions for Enterprise-wide Value and Risk Management (EVRM), has opened another international branch office in Hong Kong to reach new customers and improve the support for its growing number of existing customers in Asia.

Arnaud Picut Director for Asia/Pacific, said: “The Chinese and Asia/Pacific market has great potential for us, particularly for the sale and support of our IFRS solution. Our local personnel offer local knowledge and cultural insights, we intend to supply as many banks as possible with modern software using a strategy that combines social skills and excellent product and service quality.”

IFRS-compliant accounting practice has been compulsory in Hong Kong since 2005. Until now, many banks have relied on tactical approaches, such as Excel spreadsheets or provisional project teams, for accounting purposes. However, these short-term solutions have proven to be complicated and time-consuming when repeated for subsequent reporting periods. FERNBACH provides an up-to-date and accurate accounting system that enables banks to more efficiently meet their IFRS obligations.

FERNBACH’s FlexFinance® IFRS is a standards-compliant solution for double-entry bookkeeping which enables banks to implement state-of-the-art accounting practice exactly compliant with IFRS while rationalising the entire procedure by reducing the processing times for all banking products. Since FlexFinance® IFRS embodies features such as IFRS-compliant accounting entries, hedge accounting and regulatory reporting, it is a unique and pioneering solution for IFRS implementation. Thanks to the greatest possible transparency of the audit trail and pre-defined templates, project times are cut considerably, which in turn leads to a reduction in project costs and risks as well as guaranteed added value throughout the bank.

Because the IFRS software from FERNBACH is based on an intelligent, centralised Data Management Suite, Chinese banks will be more able to overcome the challenges imposed on financial institutions by IFRS compliance. FERNBACH APAC will help implement the banking software and provide local assistance in the form of sales, customer support and consulting services. A team of IFRS experts, who will use their in-depth know-how and local cultural knowledge to support FERNBACH customers, is currently being put together in Hong Kong.

Günther Fernbach, CEO, FERNBACH, said: “Our expansion into Hong Kong is a strategic decision because we have noticed that the Asia/Pacific market shows a major interest in up-to-date IFRS software. We had to open a branch of FERNBACH in Hong Kong providing national and international know-how in order to support and train our existing customers as well as offer consulting services to potential customers locally. We look forward to the challenge of working in one of the major financial centres in Asia, and increasing the number of installations we have there of our award-winning IFRS solution.”

For more details please contact:

FERNBACH-Software S.A.
Emma Connolly (Director of Group Marketing)
1a, Parc d'activité Syrdall
L-5365 Munsbach

Tel.: + 352 / 40 22 44 - 1
Fax: + 352 / 40 22 44 - 310

About FERNBACH:

FERNBACH has developed a solution offering called FlexFinance® which is based upon a sophisticated methodology called EVRM. EVRM is a vision and a solution for the integration of risk management, risk and regulatory requirements, balance sheet reporting and controlling within financial institutions.

The EVRM methodology is built upon a meta level data repository which collects all data from the banking and trading books and stores this centrally while simultaneously standardising and enriching the data. This centralised meta repository of financial transactions guarantees single calculation of all financial ratios ensuring perfect alignment and reconciliation so that the data can be used for purposes such as Basel II, IAS/IFRS (Multi-GAAP), Liquidity, Controlling, Regulatory Reporting, etc. The entire process is transparent and fully auditable as uniquely the data can be traced back to the deal level. This advanced approach also enables the bank to cost-effectively implement new requirements as they occur such as ECAP.