Risk Management Support

SUMMARY

The client began a project to switch to a new core banking system and aimed to complete this transition quickly with minimal impact on their daily processes and duties. To successfully complete the project and overcome the challenges arising from limited resources and technical expertise, Avantage Reply supported the Risk department of the bank in preparing for the transition. This was achieved by setting up the necessary data extracts in the new system and creating/amending various software tools to optimize the data and deliver sound and quality reports. Thus, enabling a smooth transition to the new banking system without impacting the reporting processes of the risk department.

CUSTOMER GOALS

The client was in the process of transitioning to a new core banking system. As the go-live date approached, the goal for the Risk department was to have an untroubled transition to the new software environment without experiencing incidents in their daily activities as well as regulatory reporting requirements. Therefore, all reports and extracts that were previously extracted from the legacy banking system, needed to be in place for the switch to the new system.

CHALLENGES

Resources and technical expertise were two major challenges. The staff of the Risk department were busy with their reporting duties and usual routine, which only allowed limited time to be dedicated to the implementation of the new banking software for the creation of reports. Additionally, current staff had limited expertise in the new system and the business intelligence software used for reporting purposes. Moreover, improving the robustness of the migration process while solving issues related to data quality was very time-consuming, creating a serious risk of delay in the timeline. All this while keeping in mind that the client had set an ambitious deadline for the overall transition which was a challenge in itself.

SOLUTION

Avantage Reply supported the Risk department with its transition to the new banking system. The following tasks were among its duties and responsibilities:

• Get familiar with the legacy reports that the client needs and uses for internal and regulatory reporting purposes.
• Learn to use the core banking system and the business intelligence software to which the client transitioned.
• Replicate all the reports that were previously extracted from the legacy banking system using the new business intelligence software, to prepare the transition to the new banking system.
• Furthermore, several MS Excel and MS Access tools needed to be created or adapted which manipulate and format the extracted reports to enable an easy use of the information for reporting purposes.
• An important part of the work was to coordinate and streamline the tasks with other departments and other offices to avoid unnecessary work and to make the project more efficient.

All those tasks enabled the bank to transition smoothly to the new system once the go-live date arrived and to prevent any issues for the reporting resulting from the system change.