Cognos, IBM Partner In Risk Management Software For Banks

Cognos and IBM launched a combined hardware and software product that enable banks to integrate risk information with revenue and expense planning data to maximize risk-adjusted return on capital.

The Cognos-IBM Risk Adjusted Profitability Blueprint provides a performance-management framework for building multi-dimensional, product-level profitability plans and forecasts aligned with risk-management strategies, executives said in a joint statement Wednesday.

The new product is anchored on Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos 8 Business Intelligence, and has been optimized to run on IBM System p and System x servers running the company's Information Server and DB2 Datawarehouse software. The new product also offers integration with IBM's Systgem z mainframes.

The planning and reporting environment includes :

-- Integrated risk-adjusted planning and forecasting at the product level, across multiple dimensions, with risk measures including risk adjusted return on capital, economic capital, probability of default, loss given default and expected loss; -- Activity-based management and costing for key customer, product and business segments; -- Multi-dimensional scenario planning incorporating activity costs, allowing users to compare the financial impact of several business options;

The Cognos-IBM Risk Adjusted Profitability Blueprint is available now, and is the latest in a series of profitability planning software launched by Cognos, including Blueprints for branch performance, corporate and retail banking customer segment performance, and insurance product profitability.