Client Background
The client is a new wholesale bank being established in the GCC to serve corporates, government entities and high-net-worth clients with wholesale banking and trade finance. To start operations, the bank embarked on a core banking and cloud transformation programme with a core banking vendor and a regional cloud provider, covering core banking, digital channels, compliance and regulatory reporting, a private cloud with in-country hosting, and end-to-end managed services. With several delivery partners, a phased release plan and regulatory testing ahead, the bank needed one agreed definition of scope, accountability and decision-making before execution gathered pace. Cedar was engaged to validate the statement of work and to establish the programme charter and governance model.
Cedar’s Approach
Cedar applied its PMI-aligned programme management methodology to turn the commercial scope into an executable, governed programme, working across the bank and its technology and infrastructure partners. The charter was built through five modules:
Scope and Objectives Validation – Cedar articulated the programme's objectives and validated the end-to-end scope across core banking, payments, treasury, reconciliations, loan origination, digital banking, compliance, liquidity risk and regulatory reporting, private cloud environments including disaster recovery, and run-the-bank and change-the-bank managed services, together with the key success factors.
Release and Master Programme Plan – The scope was structured into four release cycles that build capability progressively, from corporate onboarding, accounts, SWIFT payments and interbank treasury to deposits, compliance monitoring and liquidity metrics, then lending, corporate digital banking and ISO 20022 payments, and finally trade finance, corporate loan origination, domestic clearing and derivatives. A master plan with owners, milestones and critical path was paired with the dependent programmes the bank had to deliver.
Governance Structure – Cedar defined six governance bodies (steering committee, PMO, working committee, change control board, security and compliance committee, and operational readiness committee), each with terms of reference, membership by role, cadence, agenda and KPIs, plus vendor escalation matrices and a formal change request process.
Risk and Readiness Framework – Key risks and mitigations were set out across vendor alignment, regulatory approvals, resource availability, integration complexity, business continuity and requirement sign-off. Cedar also defined the pilot and business simulation approach with entry and exit criteria, a pre-, during- and post-go-live communication plan and a go-live readiness framework.
Team Structure and Accountabilities – Cedar mapped the bank, partner and quality assurance teams, defined key responsibilities for programme, technology and operations leadership, and prepared formal charter sign-off for the bank and both partners.
Strategic Outcome and Way Forward
The engagement gave the bank a single, validated programme charter that aligned its leadership and delivery partners on objectives, scope, release sequencing, decision rights and escalation paths before build and testing began. With a defined PMO, clear committee structures, a controlled change process and a shared risk register, the programme was positioned to move into execution with transparent governance and accountability across all parties.
The way forward is to complete charter sign-off by the bank and both partners, onboard the quality assurance partner, finalise the detailed training and testing approaches with the delivery partners, and run each release through the agreed governance, readiness and cutover criteria.