SEI beats SunGard to win bank deal: Update

(Revised) SEI Corp., Oaks, says it has won a contract to sell core processing and accounting systems to Wilmington Trust Corp.'s  advisory businesses, which manage more than $40 billion. SEI will replace previous Wilmington Trust provider SunGard, of Wayne.

Why SEI, not SunGard? SEI 's "services expertise, and ongoing technological innovation" clinched the deal,  James Combs, head of trust operations, said in a statement.

"We went through a nine-month process looking at several alternatives. We landed pretty quickly on SEI," Mike Chandler, the bank's chief information officer, told me. "The cost reductions over a ten-year period were significant. We think their trust system, functionally, had several lifts over SunGard."

Plus, SEI is itself a trust company, "and we think we'll function with them pretty well," Chandler added. He looks forward to "the ability to have real-time interfaces in the (SEI) trust system. This will improve cycle times for transactions, trading, investment performance calculations," and make possible "superior compliance" processes. Several SEI people will be assigned to Wilmington Trust headquaters starting in July.

Wilmington Trust and SEI wouldn't tell me what the deal is worth, but Wilmington Trust reported spending more than $1 million a month for consultants including SunGard last year. Update: SunGard "has a broad relationship with Wilmington Trust" and still considers the bank "a valued client," said SunGard spokeswoman Suzanne DeFruschio.