GFT Celebrates Ten Years in the City

June 14, 2011 - PRLog -- London, 14 June 2011, GFT UK, a leading international provider of innovative Information Technology (IT) solutions and services, is celebrating ten years in business in the financial services sector in London. Its Managing Director, Graham Underwood, says regulation will govern IT spending in financial services over the next decade.

“Regulation is becoming a strong business driver for investment banks and those which understand this will thrive. A strategic approach will be needed to ensure that spending on resources and technology is bank-wide and meaningful. This may also encourage the de-siloisation of banks in attempt to make technology implementation more effective. As a result of these changes, the importance of technology experts within banks and the ability to hire in the right knowledge for the project will become increasingly important; ultimately leading to a board position for the CTO”.

As to how the structure of banks will change, Graham Underwood thinks “we are already seeing a shift in focus from the front office to cost centres, caused by regulatory changes and the need to improve risk management practices. In areas like Finance IT, which touch the whole business, the banks’ ambitions do not currently correspond with planned funding. We think staffing; the right people, in the right place, at the right time, will be a key focus for the next few years, as financial institutions look to attract compliance talent”.

A decade ago, when GFT UK was established, the World Trade Centre was still standing, Bank of Scotland and Halifax were about to merge to form HBOS and the Labour party had just won a successive general election, in which new entrant to parliament, David Cameron, was also elected.

Enter the UK office of German head-quartered technology company, GFT. In the City, risk management was a big issue in 2001, the likely effects of Basel II were being debated in the pink pages and BlackBerrys were the new executive toy. In 2001 there was no social media, no mobile banking, but, as in 2011, there was new Basel regulation looming.

Graham Underwood continues, “In the last ten years we’ve seen the huge impact technology has had on banking; the complex products of the early part of the decade, which enabled huge growth in the City, and the early days of compliance with Basel II regulations. Today we face the strictures of Basel III and the challenges for the next decade will revolve around regulation and compliance”.

GFT UK has spent ten years working with investment banks on major implementation projects, often where the scope is undefined, such as in the aftermath of the bank bailouts, or with brand new regulation from the Basel committee. This experience means the company understands that the combination of the banks’ ambitions and the need to meet regulatory requirements, will dominate IT spending and resourcing for the foreseeable future.  Staffing levels and having the right people, for the right project, at the right time, will become increasingly important for IT departments.

Ulrich Dietz the founder of GFT and Group CEO views the company’s development from a European perspective; “business is about responding and adapting to change; being flexible. This is a lesson we learnt in the early years of business in a changing Germany and which the UK team has developed in creating the London-based business. At GFT we have always prized innovation and seized every opportunity that comes along. Whatever the next stage of growth in the UK brings us, we will not cease to adapt and innovate”.

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About Graham Underwood
Graham Underwood, Managing Director of GFT UK has been on the UK board since its inception in 2001. He believes GFT has succeeded because the company has always taken an individual approach to technology and adapted it to solve business problems, whatever they are.

About GFT
The GFT Group (www.gft.com) is an international provider of innovative IT solutions and services. Over 20 years of experience makes the company a reliable and strategic IT partner, enabling its clients to optimise their business processes through intelligent IT systems and specialists and to thus sustainably improve their competitive positions.

Ulrich Dietz founded GFT in 1987 and is now CEO of the Group which, in 2009, achieved revenues of around 217 million EUR. It has more than 1,200 employees at locations in Germany, UK, US, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland and France. GFT shares are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Prime Standard: WKN 580 060, GEX).