BearingPoint Cites Five Key Areas for Improvement By China's Banks

MCLEAN, Va., April 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BearingPoint, Inc. , one of the world's largest business consulting and systems integration firms, today cited five key areas of improvement for China's banks as they emerge on the financial services world stage.

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"China's banks are poised to potentially become some of the most influential financial institutions in the world over the next 10 years, but they first need to address fundamental management issues," said Christopher Formant, Executive Vice President, Global Financial Services. "Of primary importance for China's banks is the need to enhance their ability to manage risk. The banks can become more transparent and granular by not only investing in the appropriate technology, but also by investing in the development of their peoples' capabilities, especially in such areas as leadership development, governance training and credit and risk management."

BearingPoint noted the following key goals that are important for the development of China's banks:

-- Financial Reporting and Risk -- enhance the focus on balance sheet transparency, development and installation of enhanced operating controls and risk management, as well as credit risk in order to meet global standards. In addition, develop processes for resolving the non-performing loans that have been accumulated within the banking system. This will become increasingly important as they raise capital on global exchanges. -- Product Development -- design and develop new products for the burgeoning middle class and the emerging affluent classes of China's society, such as new payments and customized lending services. Key to this will be the development of consumer credit services to arrange for effective distribution of products to the mass market. The focus should also be on developing products and services that can generate service fee revenue, which are currently less than 5% of current earnings. -- Digitization -- use tools like Business Process Management (BPM) to digitize data and eliminate paper-based processes. China's banks could potentially leapfrog western banks in the use of digital tools. -- Delivery Systems -- move towards enterprise applications for support functions and modernize delivery and payment processing systems by creating regional centers for clearance and settlement. The focus will need to be on using technology to deploy Internet-based products and services to consumers and small business customers. -- Management development -- cultivate the leaders of tomorrow by providing training in governance and compliance issues, as well as consider tours of duty into major global financial centers to deepen key functional and managerial skills.

BearingPoint also announced that Formant will lead a group of BearingPoint global executives and banking officials to discuss these issues and other challenges facing banks in China at a company sponsored conference that convenes in Shanghai and Beijing during the week of April 4. On April 6, he will also take the executives on a tour of BearingPoint's Global Development Center in Shanghai to show the breadth of how BearingPoint's cost-effective offerings, including a high-skilled technology workforce, as well as an incubator for IT development.

The 48,500 square-foot Shanghai Global Development Center provides global clients with the flexibility of onshore program/project management, analysis, and design and offshore development of specific software applications. The Center can also offer clients custom application development, enterprise resource planning programming development, enterprise application integration, as well as application support and maintenance. BearingPoint has a second Global Development Center in Dalian.

To speak with BearingPoint about these issues, please contact John La Place at 011.44.7709.415.493, or john.laplace@bearingpoint.com, or Vivien Wu at +86.21.52925392, or vivien.wu@bearingpoint.com.

About BearingPoint, Inc.

BearingPoint, Inc. is one of the world's largest business consulting, systems integration and managed services firms serving government agencies, Global 2000 companies, medium-sized businesses and other organizations. We provide business and technology strategy, systems design, architecture, applications implementation, network infrastructure, systems integration and managed services. Our service offerings are designed to help our clients generate revenue, reduce costs and access the information necessary to operate their business on a timely basis. Based in McLean, Va., BearingPoint has been named by Fortune as one of America's Most Admired Companies in the computer and data services sector. For more information, visit the Company's website at http://www.bearingpoint.com/.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements, the accuracy of which is necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward- looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.