Walker's Horizon Selected by Barclays Wealth Management

Walker Interactive Systems Inc, a global provider of e-business solutions for the enterprise, has announced that it has been selected by Barclays Wealth Management division to implement Walker's Horizon OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing) Reporting and Analysis solution across all of Barclays Wealth Management businesses. The Barclays division selected Walker's Horizon as its preferred reporting solution following a competitive evaluation process beginning in June 1999. Barclays invited several companies, including Walker, to demonstrate the financial reporting and analysis abilities of its products, as well as its Internet based architecture. Walker won the contract and implementation of Horizon OLAP Reporting and Analysis began in October of last year.

"We are extremely pleased that Barclays Wealth Management has selected our Horizon OLAP Reporting and Analysis solution, which will enable Barclays employees around the world to review and analyze their financial results through a Web browser," said David Edwards, Product Manager for OLAP Reporting and Analysis at Walker. "We believe that Horizon OLAP Reporting and Analysis is one of the best financial reporting and analysis solutions delivering Management Insight over the Web in the marketplace today."

Barclays Wealth Management, with divisional revenue of around $1.4 billion, initiated a parallel consolidation of separate business systems around the globe which all operate on their own platforms and have independent infrastructures. Walker's Horizon met the challenge to enable Barclays to gather financial information from different sources into a single warehouse that can be used for financial reporting and analysis delivered through a self-serve environment on the Web.

Barclays Wealth Management is part of Barclays Retail Financial Services and was formed at the start of 1999 through the consolidation of five different businesses: UK Premier, Private Banking, European Retail Banking Group, the Caribbean Operations, and Offshore Services. Barclays Stockbrokers has also recently joined the division. In total, there are approximately 20 Barclays Wealth Management sites located around the globe, each with two or more users of Walker's financial reporting system, supported by a central team based at their London headquarters.

David Burke, Financial Controller at Barclays Wealth Management, explained that the Horizon development is an ongoing process with more functionality added at each step of the implementation. "As we develop the system in terms of functionality more senior executives will start to use the facility," explained Burke, "and we can provide further training to those responsible for inputting the information as we go along. They are already familiar with the basics, which are very straightforward. When we started planning and developing the implementation, we wanted to find a product which would give us a central warehouse of information and enable us to consolidate data right across Wealth Management.

"We put the project out to tender to three different companies, each of which came in to demonstrate their products. We decided that Horizon was the right solution in terms of OLAP tools and functionality which meant that we would have a reasonably sized and easy-to-handle consolidation system with a multi-site capability.

"We are very happy with how the project has gone, especially as the component businesses of our division are all so separate and have very different infrastructures. It has been relatively easy to bring them all together in terms of providing business critical data for management."

About Walker's Horizon OLAP Reporting and Analysis

OLAP Reporting and Analysis is the first reporting application built specifically for financial reporting from a multi-dimensional database. Designed by and for financial executives, OLAP Reporting and Analysis delivers complex, highly formatted financial statements in a self-service environment. Using a Web browser, end users are able to navigate to their reports, select runtime parameters and generate high quality statements for their review. Not content with simply delivering static reports, OLAP Reporting and Analysis enables the end user to analyze the content of their financial statements using Linked Reports and Free Form Analysis.

About Walker

Walker Interactive Systems Inc, headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a leading, global provider of e-business solutions for the enterprise. The Walker family of e-business applications and vertical industry solutions, combined with integration and consulting services, are utilized by Global 2000 organizations in industries including banking and financial services, paper, retail, transportation and utilities. Information about Walker is available at www.walker.com or 800-PICK-WALKER.

About Barclays PLC

Barclays PLC is a UK-based financial services group engaged primarily in the banking and investment banking businesses. In terms of assets employed, Barclays is one of the biggest financial services groups in the United Kingdom. The Group also operates in many other countries around the world and is one of the leading providers of coordinated global services to multinational corporations and financial institutions in the world's main financial centers. Barclays has four business groupings that are managed as international businesses, reflecting changing customer needs and the developments taking place in global financial services: Retail Financial Services; Corporate Banking; Barclays Capital; Barclays Global Investors.

About Barclays Wealth Management Division

Barclays Wealth Management Division is part of Barclays Retail Financial Services and serves affluent and high net worth clients globally, with relationship-based services and products, particularly in the areas of banking, asset management and long-term financial planning. The branch networks in Spain, France, Greece and Portugal serve the medium and high net worth personal markets. Private Banking offers an integrated asset management service from offices around the world, servicing clients from over 100 countries. Offshore Services, with offices in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Cyprus, Middle East and London, provides specialist banking services for personal customers and companies which are non-UK based. Wealth Management also includes UK Premier, Stockbrokers and the Caribbean.

Contact Christine Coleman of Walker Interactive Systems Inc, 415-243-2668, ccolem@walker.com.