FinTech Magazine - November 2021 | Page 3

Raiffeisen Bank : Smarter Contracts , Better Banking with SirionLabs
Better Banking : Smarter Contracts with SirionLabs :
Raiffeisen Bank : Smarter Contracts , Better Banking with SirionLabs
Founded in 1886 , Raiffeisen became a pioneering financial force in Austria before expanding its horizons beyond the country ’ s borders a century later into Central and Eastern Europe . Raiffeisen Bank International ( RBI ) today has 45,000 employees servicing 17.7 million customers . By partnering with SirionLabs , the bank has rolled out a 36,000-contract system across 14 countries in 18 months .
As Edzard Janssen , RBI ’ s Chief Procurement Officer , explains it , regulation in banking is ever strengthening and bringing more complexity also in the areas relevant to outsourcing risk management . This meant RBI needed a way to store its contracts and prove to Austrian and European regulators that it met the irrequirements by a ) having complete visibility of contractual landscape , b ) identifying and managing outsourcing relationship , c ) ensuring ease of reporting . This may seem straightforward , but it ’ s slightly more difficult than it sounds . European regulators , after all , don ’ t differentiate between internal and external suppliers when checking for banking risks and compliance .
In this regard , SirionLabs enabled RBI to track more than 1,000 internal suppliers in addition to its 36,000 external contracts . “ In other words , SirionLabs provided RBI with a fully-fledged contract management system ,” says Janssen . “ With their Smarter Contracting Platform , we can report to all authorities in real-time – on whichever dimensions they decide to track . SirionLabs ’ system is compliant by default .”
Better Banking : Smarter Contracts with SirionLabs :
SirionLabs will allow the bank to refocus on more complex , forward-looking challenges . “ Now , we have all the documents we need in that system ,” Janssen explains . “ We have a single source of truth for all of our contractual information . We have all relevant metadata including the complete relevant regulatory information stored in the system and we have the flexibility to add metadata if it is required .”
So far , Janssen has been highly pleased with how the contract management platform has unfolded . After all , SirionLabs excels at what it does . The company was named a Leader in the Forrester Wave for CLM , Q1 2021 , a Visionary in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant , and a Value Leader in the Spend Matters CLM Solution Map . But RBI and SirionLabs are good partners not only because they lead their respective industries but also because they ’ re aligned on final outcomes .
“ There are many contract management systems out there . The technology itself is not a differentiator . What is important to us is how much flexibility we have to adapt to changes in our banking environment . And here , SirionLabs helps us to solve specific banking challenges , specially in regard to compliance ,” says Janssen .