In 2014, a new investment program was launched by the Japanese government to accelerate the shift from savings to investment. In recent years, NEC has been strategically deepening its focus on digital finance (DF) to make investment banking more accessible to the masses. In 2020, Avaloq—a leading Swiss software company and pioneer in the global DF domain—became part of the NEC Group. Over the past four years, the two companies have produced a wide range of valuable new synergies. These synergies began with an aspiration that mirrors NEC's Purpose, which is to create social value with the power of digital technology.

A shared aspiration to create social value and democratize wealth

“From the outset, NEC and Avaloq had a shared aspiration,” says Hiroshi Soh, who is seconded to Avaloq from NEC to lead development of strategic synergies between the two companies. “This shared aspiration became the starting point for our synergies.”

"Orchestrating a brighter world," a statement from NEC's Purpose declaration, expresses the NEC Group's unwavering commitment to "collaborate closely with partners and customers around the world to orchestrate new value and enable people to live richer and brighter lives."

At the same time, Avaloq has articulated an objective “to orchestrate the financial ecosystem and democratize access to wealth management.” Each of these missions share the common goal of orchestrating and co-creating new value.

The democratization of wealth refers to the creation of a society in which wealth management (WM) services are widely accessible to people from all walks of life, rather than just the wealthy. A leader in the WM software market, Avaloq ranks first in Europe and second in Asia Pacific (APAC) in terms of market share, and boasts strengths in linking government and financial systems.

As Avaloq's resources have been combined with those of the NEC Group, which has an accomplished history of developing top-class technologies in the biometric and digital fields, expectations have been high for the companies to form powerful synergies.

Leveraging track records in sales and operations to tap into new markets

Collaboration between NEC and Avaloq has steadily grown over the past four years, as can be seen in some of the initiatives that have been launched. In marketing and sales, they draw on their mutual resources and find ways to complement each other by analyzing markets in which they have a strong presence. NEC may have a strong relationship with the IT department of Bank A, for example, while Avaloq has close ties with its wealth management and planning departments. There are also cases where Avaloq may collaborate with a local subsidiary of the NEC Group in order to leverage the subsidiary's sales capabilities to win orders for new projects.

One example of NEC’s local sales capabilities serving as a springboard for success is a project announced in May 2022 in which Avaloq provided a platform to Mega International Commercial Bank (Mega Bank), to expand its private banking business. Moreover, a case with Security Bank, which has a Japanese-affiliated bank as its parent company, was achieved by leveraging trust in the NEC Group, as well as a new strategic partnership formed in February 2024 between Security Bank Corporation, a major private bank in the Philippines, and Avaloq.

In terms of operational synergy, Avaloq recently decided to entrust its network monitoring service operations, which were part of SaaS services it was providing to four financial institutions in the Asian region, to an NEC Group company in Singapore. Since system monitoring and primary response support require 24-hour coverage, it was simply more efficient for these operations to be covered by the NEC side, which has a larger presence in the region. This move led to better operational stability and cost reductions

Combining long-standing trust with a new brand to expand areas of value

According to Soh, "Having spent these last four years deepening synergies through earnest discussions with various departments and members, proposals from the Avaloq side with the potential to create new synergies are quite common. Behind this is a confidence in Avaloq's aspiration to achieve the democratization of wealth."

Pascal Wengi, Managing Director for Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, who has led the creation of synergies with NEC from the Avaloq side, had this to say about the value NEC has delivered, “I think the credibility that NEC provides for Avaloq is very important. NEC has been in so many markets for so many years. It's amazing how we can go to Dubai, for example, and we are recognized right away. This credibility was established by NEC across many years, not just recently. NEC brings long term strategies and thinking that have created an important presence and brand in many markets. Now, perhaps we can position Avaloq as a younger brand for the financial industry. That combination of NEC and Avaloq creates a powerful offering for the market.”

The possibilities are boundless when it comes to combining the sales capabilities, brand power, technological expertise, solutions, and services of NEC and Avaloq, and together they can be used to maximize the value provided by all of the NEC Group. Going forward, the synergies that support the achievement of NEC's Purpose of "Orchestrating a brighter world" will continue to illuminate the world through digital finance.

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