ALFA is System of Choice for SEB Finans
SEB Finans is a specialist leasing subsidiary of Skandinaviska Enskilda Bankens, the leading banking group in Scandinavia.
Based in London, their market objective is to assist their parent bank's clients through the provision of asset finance solutions. An internal review of the existing SEB Finans lease accounting package revealed a lack of functionality and controls necessary for operation in the current finance market.
The need to replace the system was balanced against the limitations and profitability of their niche market. Accordingly, any replacement system had to produce the desired controls but at a cost related to the scale of their business. Whilst ALFA was their system of choice, an outright purchase of ALFA coupled with the need to reinforce the capability of the accounts function to operate the system was unlikely to be an economical solution.
The parent bank had a history of outsourcing functionality where it could produce cost benefits. With this in mind, we were able to design a licensing arrangement whereby SEB Finans would have access to ALFA through a dedicated external accounting function. The process was subject to a full review by the parent bank to ensure that the tri-partite arrangement met their strict audit and compliance requirements.
The primary rationale in obtaining access to ALFA was the reputation afforded to it through the substantive client list. ALFA provided SEB Group with considerable comfort that the system was reliable and suitable for their strict audit requirements.
The result was that SEB Finans could plan to grow their new business book based on a fixed cost without resorting to the acquisition of additional staff to support such performance.
The outsourcing of ALFA and the associated accounting needs continues to meet all of the SEB Finans day-to-day requirements.