CGI has nabbed an unusually-structured consulting contract from the National Bank of Canada that will see it purchase some of the bank’s software.

National Bank is Canada’s sixth largest bank and the biggest in Quebec. It’s  also a long-time client of CGI, a mammoth IT consultancy with 90,000-plus employees and a client base that includes numerous leading financial institutions.

CGI’s new contract with National Bank has two main parts.

First, the consultancy will buy the intellectual property rights to National Bank’s proprietary financial planning software. The software is used internally to support the work of the firm’s financial advisors.

The second part of the deal focuses on IT services. After buying the rights to National Bank’s financial planning software, CGI will deliver it back to the bank for ten years as a software-as-a-service solution.

Put differently, CGI is taking over the task of maintaining the software in return for the right to sell it to other clients. National Bank saves time for its IT crew, while CGI gains a valuable software asset.

“This partnership enables us to leverage CGI’s expertise and capabilities to enhance product development in order to accelerate the delivery of a streamlined end-user experience for advisors and investors,” explained Éric-Olivier Savoie, the top executive at National Bank’s investment group. “Our trusted and long-standing partnership with CGI helped pave the way for this ‘win-win’ opportunity.”

National Bank’s net income dropped 4% to $738 million last quarter. But its wealth management division, which uses the financial planning software that the bank has sold to CGI, not only avoided the company-wide earnings decline but increased its net income by 26%.

That’s a powerful proof point for National Bank’s financial planning software. This proof point will make it all the easier for CGI to sell the software to other clients in the banking sector. 

CGI plans to package National Bank’s technology into its Wealth360 suite of wealth management tools. The suite enables banks to automatically generate trading recommendations for their financial advisors, create guardrails to ensure advisors’ investment decisions align with firm policies and manage client billing.

CGI’s Wealth360 suite also offers features for optimizing a broad range of other investment-related workflows at financial institutions. The addition of National Bank’s financial planning software will further cement Wealth360’s value proposition as an expansive, soup-to-nuts solution. 

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