Wincor Nixdorf AG has acquired a 51 percent interest in Bankberatung AG, which is based in Wedemark near Hanover, Germany.
 
According to a news release, the acquisition is expected to help Wincor Nixdorf add consulting skills to its retail banking portfolio.
 
“The banking organization and solution consulting offer from Bankberatung AG empowers us to support retail banks throughout all phases of their change processes. These range from banking consulting and process design to IT solution consulting and integration and, ultimately, IT operations management and outsourcing,” said Stefan Auerbach, the board member responsible for Wincor Nixdorf's banking business.
 
Participation in Bankberatung AG gives Wincor Nixdorf the chance to improve its present solution expertise for a variety of delivery channels with the emphasis on the branch and self-service.
 
Know-how will be gained in the areas of banking-specific support for the front- and back-office and core-banking processes. This will complement Wincor Nixdorf's existing strengths, which are primarily in sales support and infrastructure services. Bankberatung AG's main areas of activity include banking analysis and the conception, design and optimization of transaction banking processes, bank management and the migration of banking applications.
 
The company also offers project management for vendor-neutral solution projects. In the software segment, consultants at Bankberatung AG can draw on years of experience in the rollout of SAP and Kordoba banking software as well as the integration of data warehousing solutions, among other things. 
 
Bankberatung AG was founded in 1988 in Wedemark near Hanover, Germany. The company employs more than 50 people and generated revenues of more than €11 million (U.S. $20.3 million) in fiscal 2007. Bankberatung will continue to be headed by directors Ulrich Fichte and Peter-W. Cuypers.
 
“I'm pleased that, in Wincor Nixdorf, we have found a partner with a portfolio that offers us a perfect fit for our range of services, and who grants us the freedom to keep an independent profile on the market,” Fichte said. “The new constellation sets the ideal scene for continued success at Bankberatung AG in the future.”
 
For Wincor Nixdorf the takeover is a milestone in the company's strategic transformation — one it has consistently pursued for many years — from a hardware manufacturer to a provider of IT solutions for the banking and retail sectors. Its aim is to continually expand its business base and enhance the role it plays in the value chain through optimization of its customers' business processes.
 
“We now offer our banking customers an extended array of services from a single source. They can combine them or simply select individual services. On top of this, the know-how at Bankberatung AG will be a valuable source of motivation for our own innovative solutions,” Auerbach said.