NORD/LB Leverages Continuous Integration for Latest MX.3 Upgrade

Through Murex CI/CD pipeline implementation, the German bank achieves a strategic milestone in its roadmap toward a future lift-and-shift approach

HANOVER, GERMANY, and PARIS, September 5, 2023—NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank, a leading renewable energy financier, has gone live on a new version of the MX.3 platform using Murex continuous integration solutions and services.

NORD/LB capital markets activity relies on the MX.3 platform for front office, enterprise risk management—limit control, credit risk and stress testing—and back office, including collateral and accounting.

By upgrading its MX.3 installation, NORD/LB sought to primarily protect itself against technical deprecation and end-of-life issues related to third-party components—the operating system, database and Java versions. Adopting the newest MX.3 version also aimed to improve operations resiliency in the context of DORA regulation. The bank successfully achieved its strategic goals and attained high levels of automation, enabling the continuous evolution and seamless integration of innovations into its MX.3 platform.

“The implementation of the continuous integration is a major milestone for the NORD/LB financial markets platform and supports our business strategy and related Murex projects,” said NORD/LB Financial Markets Program Manager Joachim Grimme. “The implementation of the Murex continuous integration pipeline during the MX.3 binary update project was a decisive move to improve the quality of the deployment and reduce complexity significantly, while improving the productivity,” said NORD/LB Project Manager Frederike Haase. “It allowed us to efficiently manage multiple MX.3 installations that we use to develop and test customizations required by our business in various front-to-back-to-risk domains. On the hardware infrastructure side, it permitted us to better leverage our existing capacity and avoid any waste, which aligns with our ESG objectives.”

“Using the Murex continuous integration toolchain allowed NORD/LB to automate the conversion activities required for the upgrade and eliminated operational risks,” said Murex Project Director Hadi Abi-Tayeh. “It is a big success for the bank and validates the strategic decision to progressively adopt continuous integration tools and methodology.”

Murex is pleased to support NORD/LB in its DevOps journey and to accompany other institutions in their continuous integration transitions. NORD/LB is now planning new business initiatives, such as the introduction of FX TARF (target redemption forward) products to its customer base and the calculation and processing of initial margin (ISDA SIMM) for non-cleared derivatives. These initiatives will be implemented using the new way of working.

Murex continuous integration services deliver a high level of test automation. This enables NORD/LB to realize the full potential of MX.3, reducing time to market for new products or regulations, removing operational risk related to IT manual and repetitive tasks, and maximizing velocity with predictability and traceability.

In the longer term, NORD/LB’s strategic focus on business growth could be facilitated by a lift-and-shift of its MX.3 installation to the Murex SaaS. As a result, Murex would host and manage NORD/LB installations of MX.3 on the bank’s behalf. The end-user experience, integration of MX.3 within NORD/LB’s IT landscape and ability to customize MX.3 according to NORD/LB’s unique needs would remain unchanged and within the bank’s control.