Credit Suisse Selects TopClass

Dateline: 21 May 2003

WBT Systems, a leading provider of Enterprise e-Learning Solutions, today announced that Credit Suisse Financial Services has chosen the TopClass e-Learning Suite as their corporate e-Learning solution. This enterprise-wide contract follows a successful three-year deployment at Credit Suisse Private Banking where TopClass was used to deliver online learning to 8,500 employees. The initial focus of the expanded deployment is legal and compliance training to all 50,000 staff and sales training to the Group’s 4,000 strong sales team.

“Over the past three years we have enjoyed a very productive relationship with WBT Systems and their Swiss partner, Tertia Edusoft. TopClass is a comprehensive e-Learning Suite and WBT Systems’ services are top-notch,” said Anthony Cerquone, Head of Talent Development and Leadership Technology, Credit Suisse Financial Services. “We chose WBT Systems because of their understanding of our business. The commercial, competitive and regulatory environment that we play in is very complex and WBT Systems understand this. They are helping us to respond to these challenges with innovative solutions to cut costs and improve efficiency.”

As a global institution, Credit Suisse must observe the legal and compliance regulations of many different countries and this poses a challenge in terms of training its worldwide staff and ensuring they are compliant in the countries in which they operate. The Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) has been increasing the amount of regulatory control and monitoring of the Swiss financial environment with anti-money laundering and client data protection as key areas of focus. In foreign locations, Credit Suisse maintains compliance with Swiss regulations in addition to the policies of any regional regulatory authorities. Every significant Credit Suisse location has a legal unit including a legal and compliance officer and the reporting requirements for a legal and compliance officer may differ in each region based on the local regulatory authority.

“Credit Suisse is committed to ensuring compliance with the regulatory obligations in every location in which it operates.” continued Mr. Cerquone. “Like all large financial institutions, this imposes an enormous training obligation, which would be almost impossible to meet with traditional classroom training. For example, we and our colleagues in Legal & Compliance, have developed “Case of the Month”, a scenario-based approach to testing staff on work situations that require an understanding of compliance. This course is mandatory for several thousand employees every month, as well as being available to all others. With the help of WBT Systems and TopClass, we look forward to meeting and exceeding these obligations.”

“This contract is a significant endorsement of WBT Systems’ leadership position in Financial Services, and rewards our commitment to customer satisfaction, which is a core value of our business”. said Declan Kelly, CEO, WBT Systems. “We have a major focus on Financial Services and are the only platform company to have invested in functionality specifically for this market. For example, our TopClass Compliance Solution provides comprehensive compliance functionality based on a unique Compliance Lifecycle Model, that we have developed from our many years of experience in this market.”

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