In summer 2024, ALM Partners reached a significant milestone by completing the largest project in the company’s history. The outcome of this project marks a major turning point in our regulatory reporting services, as it enables banks to calculate the critical solvency ratio using the DPM-native CRDM product family developed by ALM Partners. This sets us apart from other providers whose systems often follow the old legacy-model and therefore require more extensive maintenance.
The ability to produce solvency ratios in an up-to-date and more efficient manner positions ALM Partners as a forerunner in the financial sector reporting. The project, which began in 2018, culminated in summer 2024 with the production launch during the second quarter. With the ALM Partners’ new regulatory reporting solution, banks can generate COREP reports for regulatory authorities cost-effectively and reliably.
Head of Regulatory Advisory & Data Director Timo Koski highlighted the significance of this achievement: “This milestone is significant for our company for many reasons. We can now deliver complex and crucial COREP reporting for banks transparently and unambiguously. Among other things, this includes the calculation of one of the most important key figures for banks – the solvency ratio. It reflects the bank’s financial structure and its ability to withstand economic challenges. This figure is one that banks typically highlight in their financial statements. A key aspect of this project has been the exceptionally good relationship with our stakeholders and customers, who have shown their confidence in our co-operation. It truly enabled us to carry out this major undertaking as a joint effort. Regulatory reporting systems are long-term investments that must operate reliably and steadily – even as regulations evolve. Once the system is built, it is expected to serve our customers for the next 15–25 years. Such significant projects require extensive and strategic work. It’s gratifying that we have successfully completed this unique project.”
The project has been long. In the summer of 2023, ALM Partners completed key parts of the project. At that time, over 90 people at ALM Partners had worked on this project, meaning that more than half of the company’s employees had contributed their expertise to it. If we now look at the workforce involved in the project, it’s clear that over a hundred people have been involved. This illustrates the scale, expertise, and hours of work that have been dedicated to the project. Expertise has been spread throughout the organization, from top management to the most specialized experts in various fields, from infrastructure specialists to data engineers working with databases, and regulatory and compliance reporting experts. Thousands of work hours have been invested.
With the production go-live, our system is now operational with dozens of our customer banks. It is functional and produces both compliant and desired results. This creates a stable foundation for the development of ALM Partners’ regulatory reporting business area, both nationally and internationally. We are now able to offer production-validated applications, not “hopeful” versions that are still being built.
The change in the reporting system brings significant benefits to some of our customers in the form of an improved solvency ratio, as the new system allows for more precise implementation of regulations, such as better utilization of collateral. This improvement is likely to lead to lower financing costs and thus directly benefit our customers. Additionally, there is full transparency in the reporting process and source code, allowing data flow and logic to be traced throughout the entire process.
At the end of the project, in the summer of 2024, ALM Partners organized a large workshop at the office, where critical production staff gathered to launch the production work and verify the execution of the first production run. The workshop enabled immediate communication across the different areas of the project and real-time tracking of task progress. Key personnel from more than ten teams and several business areas were involved.
On the day of the production launch, ALM Partners’ Chief Technology Officer, Risto Tammela, mentioned that our customers are now using the products, processes, and services we have built for their most important regulatory reporting. Due to the complex dependencies within the COREP reporting areas, the final reporting system must ultimately be taken into production simultaneously and therefore requires close monitoring, just for risk management purposes alone. The first commit to the CRDM database dates back to 2018, meaning that we have worked for six years to reach this point. According to Tammela, this is a particularly proud moment for ALM.
ALM Partners will continue its development efforts and expansion. With a functioning system now in production for multiple customers, the prospects for internationalization look increasingly promising. The company’s commitment to excellence and its ability to deliver complex solutions will keep ALM Partners on the path of growth and success in the financial sector.
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