SAP AG hopes to use a reseller deal with Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., to gain a foothold in the U.S. banking industry.
Karl Kesselring, the SAP vice president in charge of banking partnerships, said the Walldorf, Germany, database provider plans to offer its specialized analytic products to users of CSC's Hogan Core Banking System.
"A very good starting point for this partnership is pricing optimization," Mr. Kesselring said in an interview last week.
The Hogan system is used by 10 of the nation's 25 largest banking companies, including Wells Fargo & Co., U.S. Bancorp, and Washington Mutual Inc.
Executives of the two vendors said they would focus first on analytics for retail loan portfolios and then move into related areas such as cards, credit risk, and asset-liability management.
The SAP Price Optimization application weighs factors such as seasonality, customer behavior, and competitive analysis in light of a bank's competitive strategy to provide a statistical approach to pricing.
LaDonna Hansen, a vice president in CSC's banking division, said the application has little overlap with her company's offerings.
Though banks can perform price optimization within business silos, they have a hard time doing so across their product portfolios, Ms. Hansen said. "This kind of solution can really help with the customer segmentation strategy."
SAP also has reseller deals with SunGard Data Systems Inc. of Wayne, Pa., Misys PLC of London, and Callatay & Wouters, a Brussels company that sells core systems mostly in Europe and Asia. Mr. Kesselring said each of these deals focuses on specific issues, such as statutory reporting software in Callatay & Wouters' case.
