PARIS (Reuters) - Amundi confirmed on Wednesday plans to switch the IT systems of its recently-acquired Pioneer Investments from rival BlackRock's Aladdin platform in a bid to cut costs.
"Having your own software is a key driver of efficiency," Amundi's chief executive officer Yves Perrier was quoted as saying by Financal News on Wednesday.
BlackRock's Aladdin operating system is used by asset managers to help manage the risk in their portfolios and assist them in trading, data management and other operations. BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager.
An Amundi spokeswoman confirmed the change and said that migration of Pioneer to Amundi's system was expected to be completed by the beginning of the first quarter of 2019.
Amundi bought Pioneer Investments from Italian lender Unicredit for 3.54 billion euros ($4.1 billion) this year.
The French group expects the acquisition to deliver 150 million euros in cost synergies and 30 million euros in revenue synergies over a full year, starting from completion of the integration process, which will take two years.
More than 200 institutions, including BlackRock, use Aladdin and its risk analytics, the world's largest asset manager with $5.7 trillion says.
Growing Aladdin is a key priority for Blackrock's CEO Larry Fink, who has placed an emphasis on technology as the broader stockpicking business has come under pressure from lower cost index funds.
(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Simon Jessop, Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; editing by Alexander Smith)
