tools and XBRL. Release 4.0 of FinStudio in 2011 was fully .Net, with the removal of the remaining VisualBasic; by early Q2 2012, De Beule said most customers were on this release. Recent developments included support for Microsoft’s new PowerView and PowerPivot reporting tools.
User experiences – FinStudio
FinArch gained significantly over the years from new global financial regulations and none more so than the Basel requirements. The fact that the deadline for compliance with this had been staggered throughout the world provided new wins for the vendor over a long period of time. Indeed, reflecting the importance placed on Basel II by the supplier, mid-2006 saw the launch of ‘Basel II Express’, a slimmed down version of the Basel II functionality within FinStudio. This was designed for banks that were left with too little time to complete a full Basel II implementation. It only supported a standardised approach, albeit with the ability to upgrade to the full FinStudio over time for more advanced compliance. However, the Express version did not really take off, in part because non- compliant banks were given a period of grace to put a solution in place, and FinArch had no plans to do something similar for Basel III. For the latter, FinArch was responding to RFPs in the first half of 2012, with the expectation of signings in Q3 and Q4.
One notable earlier decision came from Bank of New York, which selected FinStudio for its Basel II reporting, as well as to automate and streamline the production of regulatory reports for the US, UK, Belgium and Luxembourg. The information was to be drawn from a Peoplesoft data warehouse. The North American success for FinArch followed on from
a win at the end of 2004 in Canada, at TD Bank Financial Group, again with Basel II as a key area of focus, alongside other reporting requirements, including the calculation of risk weighted assets (RWA), generation of the Capital Adequacy Report, and support for other reports for the Canadian regulator, OSFI. At this site, FinStudio was linked to an in-house data warehouse. While TD put a lot of demands on FinArch and FinStudio, said Simon Barkla, associate vice president of corporate technology solutions at the bank, the relationship was a good one. There was initially what Barkla described as a ‘pretty
rigorous’ selection process, which commenced in March 2004. TD then engaged in demonstrations of the different solutions which quickly knocked out around half of the vendors. The short-listed vendors were then asked to perform capital calculations against internally created test cases and, at that stage, FinArch was the only one to replicate the correct results. The deal was finalised in November 2004 and the project commenced in January the following year. CapGemini was initially involved but this involvement was cut short in October, at which point the bank decided to work directly with FinArch. FinArch had what Barkla described as the ‘nucleus’ for what
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was needed for Basel II, with the requirements themselves still unclear in some areas. A lot of the fleshing out of the platform was done jointly by the bank and supplier. The supplier’s staff were ‘very available’, and it was felt that FinArch recognised the importance of TD as a reference customer. F Van Lanschot also selected FinStudio in 2005, as part of a wider enterprise level overhaul for accounting, capital management, MIS, compliance and central bank reporting. The platform was intended to allow the bank to address immediate challenges, such as Basel II and IFRS, as well as constituting a wider platform for all internal and external reporting requirements. An RFI was issued in September 2004, with reference site visits in 2005 and the selection of FinArch in September of that year. In 2006, long-standing FinStudio user, ABN Amro, opted to implement the system in additional sites in Asia Pacific, starting with Hong Kong and probably followed by Taiwan, Indonesia and China. The bank already used the system in Belgium, Italy and, as of the previous year, Singapore. FinStudio was to be used for MIS, head office reporting and Basel I.
Late 2006 saw DnB Nord sign to implement FinStudio for Basel ll. The implementation would cover operations in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. A major factor in the decision was FinArch’s successful implementation track-record and, indeed, DnB Nord itself later went on to reselect FinStudio to satisfy IFRS accounting and local regulatory reporting. A year later and a second Lithuanian bank opted for FinStudio for Basel II and regulatory reporting for its operations in Latvia and Lithuania. Snoras Bank too cited FinArch’s track-record as a key reason for the selection. Subsequently, the bank decided to upgrade its financial resource planning by moving to one platform across all of its operations. These comprised its domestic operations, its subsidiary in Latvia and a new operation in Estonia. The idea was to feed its compliance, capital management, MIS and accounting requirements from this one platform. FinStudio again was to be used for this. ‘We liked it and decided to go forward with it,’ said the bank’s reporting systems project manager, Eduard Melman. Mid-2007 also saw FinArch make its first incursion
into Lebanon, at Byblos Bank. FinStudio was to handle its requirements for Lebanon as well as its international entities in Belgium, France and UK, Sudan and Syria. The bank’s assistant general manager, head of corporate risk management, Philippe Saleh, said it was a ‘very tough decision’ but influences were the supplier’s commitment and an existing relationship in Belgium where FinArch was already used for financial reporting. ‘We perceived we would have a smoother implementation with them than with others.’ In the early part of 2008, Société Générale Private
Banking in Belgium gave up on an in-house build for Basel II and turned instead to FinStudio. The complexity meant that the time and resources needed with the former approach would have exceeded the bank’s original estimates. The bank
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