Safe Systems Supports Banking Industry Trend, Introduces Mergers and Acquisitions IT Assessment

August 3, 2011

Tools

Risk, Cost Reduced with Efficient Consolidation of Technology, Infrastructure

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Safe Systems, winner of the 2011 BankNews Innovative Solutions Award, and national leader in compliance-centric IT support and hosted services exclusively for financial institutions, today announced the launch of an IT assessment service designed to reduce a financial institution’s exposure in the high risk area of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

“Today’s banking industry faces many challenges,” said Darren Bridges, president of Safe Systems. “For various reasons, our industry is seeing a significant increase in consolidation, and the consensus is that we’ll see even more. Safe Systems’ IT Assessment is designed to strengthen the institution’s consolidation of critical IT infrastructure in the mergers & acquisitions process. Our goal with this solution is to bring the lessons we’ve learned from helping hundreds of ‘growth-mode’ financial institutions lay a course for merging IT infrastructure while maintaining tight regulatory adherence and IT security.”

Safe Systems’ IT Assessment allows management to focus on strategic initiatives in the M&A transaction, while a team of technology specialists ensure efficient organization of infrastructure between the institutions. By maximizing the institution’s existing technology, Safe Systems then formulates a technology roadmap that best compliments the overall business plan. A comprehensive review of the institution and the acquired institution’s infrastructure, technology staff, current policies, procedures, and overall compliance posture can help to reduce the costs associated with implementation. This review is documented with a comprehensive roadmap outlining recommended changes for the proposed future growth plan.

Safe Systems’ Mergers and Acquisition IT Assessment provides the following services for both the acquiring and acquired institutions:

Comprehensive evaluation of the network, IT operations, Information Security and enterprise-wide risk assessments.
Complete assessments of business continuity/disaster recovery, Business Impact Analysis (BIA), risk assessments and vendor management programs.
Detailed hardware/software inventory reporting to determine compatibility with existing and future updates/upgrades or releases.
Review of current contracts for WAN and data communications, network support and network security.
Interview of key IT operations personnel, recommendations for efficient staffing.
Detailed deliverable of implementation plan with recommended changes and potential infrastructure integration costs, and schematic to clearly depict the current and future configurations of all branch locations.

“As the banking industry stabilizes, it is critical for institutions to maintain and create efficiencies and cost savings across the entire network,” Bridges continued. “The Safe Systems’ IT Assessment minimizes the complexity of a merger or acquisition by providing a customized IT roadmap to pave the way for future growth plans, while capitalizing on existing resources.”

Please join Safe Systems Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 2 pm ET for an M&A IT assessment and infrastructure webinar entitled, 5 Keys for Effectively Managing a Growing Institution's IT Infrastructure. Attendees will earn one hour of CPE credit for attending and will be eligible to win an Amazon gift card. The webinar is free to attendees. Register at http://www.safesystems.com/webinars/.

About Safe Systems

Founded in 1993, Safe Systems is the national leader in providing compliance-centric IT solutions exclusively to financial institutions. Safe Systems works with more than 500 financial institutions and manages more than 20,000 network devices nationwide. Safe Systems' scalable and cost effective solutions include IT managed services, compliance solutions, business continuity and disaster recovery, hosted email, data vaulting, network design and installation, security services, and IT and compliance training. Safe Systems helps financial institutions to significantly decrease costs, increase revenues, and improve performance. For additional information about Safe Systems, Inc., please visit http://www.safesystems.com or call 877-752-0550.