Author: Julie Duncan

ALMIS® offers COREP / FINREP (CRD IV) capability

Posted on by Julie Duncan

ALMIS® International announces today that they are releasing COREP / FINREP (CRD IV) capability into their regulatory reporting module.

Next year, Banks and Building Societies across Europe will have no choice but to submit returns automatically using XBRL and this could result in significant system developmments. ALMIS® software can provide the capability to both produce and submit COREP/FINREP XBRL documents.

This latest update to our regularory reporting module strengthens our commitment to ensuring ALMIS® is future proof, and offers Firms who are not currently using this module, a quick, easy and cost effective solution to this new regulation.

For further information please contact our dedicated team at [email protected]

FTP Seminar – Central London – a resounding success

Posted on by Julie Duncan

FTP / Product Pricing for Banks and Building Societies not operating a profit centre treasury

Our recent FTP / product pricing seminar, held in central London on 28 March 2012, was a resounding success. Over 60 delegates attended from 40 UK banks and building societies to hear expert speakers from ALMIS® Consulting and the Financial Services Authority.

Download FTP White Paper

At the event ALMIS® Consulting published their White Paper on FTP, which was writen following a working party review of FTP with a range of banks and building societies. This paper can be downloaded and shared with colleagues and is designed to help Firms develop their own ‘fit for purpose’ model.

“Quick/Efficient sense check on our FTP progress”

“Good to get the regulator’s perspectives. ALMIS® White Paper very informative”

“Thought provoking”

“Blend of regulatory view and solution design in presentations and Q & A session”

FTP Seminar

Posted on by Julie Duncan

Product Pricing / Funds Transfer Pricing Seminar

Due to phenomenal demand our upcoming seminar on Product Pricing/Funds Transfer Pricing to be held at the Grange Holburn Hotel on the 28th of March is fully subscribed. We look forward to meeting all the delegates on the day of the event.

If you have missed out on a place, you can still contact us and we will put you on a waiting list. Please send us your details to [email protected].

Using ALMIS® for Forward Looking Analysis

Posted on by Julie Duncan

Thank you to everyone who attended our Using ALMIS® for Forward Looking Analysis Webinar, which we run exclusively for ALMIS® clients.

This webinar focused on giving an overview of the ALMIS® financial planning functionality, recent enhancements available in version 9, types of assumptions and stress tests to consider, and how to use the planner with the new report writer tool.

Please feel free to download slides from webinar

Or watch a video of the webinar

Points raised from this webinar were:

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In the last 18 months or so the ALMIS® planning wizard has been adopted and is being used by many more firms.

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Forward looking analysis, in the first instance at least, should be based on very high level assumptions. Whilst calculations on, for example, rates and maturities can be at a low level, assumptions should be at a very high level.

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The report writer can be used with the financial planning tool to custom build reports and analysis – allowing banking firms to create their own analysis.

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The new report writer is available to all ALMIS® clients and is included within the software.

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The performance and speed of producing a plan can be improved by using a thin client configuration and by compressing data to reduce the number of transactions held within the plan.

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Enhancements available in ALMIS® version 9 gives banking firms more flexibility and more options available for assumptions, leading to improved analysis and reporting.

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Funds Flow report, which is available in version 9, allows banking firms to more easily identify and understand balance movements.

Everyone agreed that the webinar was useful, informative and interactive.

“Intuitive as I can see how to do it on Almis”

“Clear and informative – not overcomplicated”

“Useful short summary of functionality”

 

We hold webinars every month on important banking industry topics. Our next webinar is on the new report writer functionality, and will be held on Wednesday 29th February 2012 at 2.30pm.

Announcing ALMIS® Consulting

Posted on by Julie Duncan

ALMIS® International is launching ALMIS® Consulting as a premium management consultancy service for clients, designed to help firms adopt best practice in Asset Liability Management.

Services include:

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ALCO terms of reference, framework and reporting

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ALM, Interest Rate Risk & Treasury Management Training for NED’s, Board & Executives and new entrants

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Development of product pricing and funds transfer pricing methodology

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Treasury Management System (TMS) requirements, selection and implementation

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Assistance with ILAA & ICAAP

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Developing Forward Looking Analysis

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General advice with funding facilities and plans

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Management of banking relationships

Consultants:

Joe Di Rollo

Joe Di Rollo has over 25 years’ experience in bank financial risk management, particularly in the fields of interest rate, liquidity and credit risk modelling. Joe is also an experienced trainer. Joe is an accountant and member of the association of corporate treasurers.

Dean Carter

Dean is an experienced Building Society Treasury and Risk Professional having worked in both London and Paris and formerly as Head of Treasury at the Nottingham Building Society. He has also held the post of General Manager – Operational Risk and Compliance. Dean has recently moved into treasury consultancy practice and will be working exclusively for ALMIS® International and King & Shaxson. His work at ALMIS® International is to help clients develop custom ALCO packs, analysis and specifically assist with the development of both treasury management policy and treasury systems. ALMIS® will be drawing on Dean’s considerable expertise to help develop an integrated treasury system offering. His work as Director of Treasury Solutions at King & Shaxson will compliment this work and includes investment and funding advice, interest rate forecasting and economic reviews, ALCO attendance and advice, and counterparty services advice.

For more information, or any questions regarding our articles, please email us

Funds Transfer Pricing Webinar

Posted on by Julie Duncan

 

Thank you to everyone who attended our Funds Transfer Pricing Webinar, which we run exclusively for ALMIS® users. We had an overwhelming number of attendees, highlighting the benefits of our webinars and the increasing importance of this topic.

 

The webinar was presented by Dean Carter, Associate Director, and focused on what Funds Transfer Pricing means for firms, ways to address the issue and a way forward using ALMIS® software.

 

Please feel free to download slides from Funds Transfer Pricing Webinar

 

Everyone agreed that the webinar was useful, informative and interactive.

“quick way of getting a good

understanding of a subject”

“very easy way to get a group of ALMIS® users together & discuss various topics”

“Useful to hear other people’s experiences”

Points raised from this webinar were:

  • FTP is firmly on the FSA’s radar, and is a good strategic and financial management practice.

  • However, it needs to be clear, well thought out and appropriate for the size and type of business, and particularly is very different in firms who do not run treasury as a profit centre.

  • There is no right answer, nor is there a simple generic model to employ, but there are common themes.

  • A building society commented that the FSA want them to go further than they have already and are very interested in the cost of capital as well as cost of liquidity.

  • Another building society commented that the FSA recommended recently that they not only include the cost of capital but also the FSCS Levy.

  • ALMIS® report writer can be used to develop Funds Transfer Pricing functionality individually for ALMIS® users.

  • ALMIS® FTP late January workshop to be held in Leeds to agree and develop a suitable ‘pricing’ template for mortgages.

  • ALMIS® will be holding a FTP seminar in late March, which will be presented jointly with the FSA.

 

We hold webinars every month on important industry topics. Our next webinar is on Using ALMIS® for Forward Looking Analysis, and will be held on Tuesday 31st January 2012 at 2.30pm.

Analysing Interest Margin Webinar

Posted on by Julie Duncan

 

Thank you to everyone who attended our Analysing Interest Margin Webinar, which we run exclusively for ALMIS® users. We had high attendance again highlighting how useful these webinars are.

 

The webinar focused on ideas for reporting and analysing movements in interest margin as well as examining calculating and reporting rate, volume and mix variances.

 

To encourage interaction and add extra value, Dean Carter who has practical experience as a treasurer from the building society sector, joined the meeting as a guest expert.

 

Please feel free to download slides from Analysing Interest Margin Webinar

 

Everyone agreed that the webinar was useful, informative and interactive.

“quick way of getting a good understanding of a subject”

“very easy way to get a group of ALMIS® users together & discuss various topics”

“This forum allows attendees to share their thoughts”

Points raised from this webinar were:

  • Margin by category / product / basis expressed in basis point margin contribution is very helpful, particularly for explaining margin movements and understanding rate and volume variances

  • It is also helpful to look at and compare the funds transfer pricing rate / benchmark rate

  • The ALMIS® report writer will be an invaluable tool for setting up a funds transfer pricing mechanism, taking account of the cost of capital and cost of liquidity

  • It is important to look and calculate margin for each category (eg fixed lending) net of hedging – and this is done using the report writer

  • The ALMIS® report writer is free to all ALMIS® users, and users can share report templates, a library of which will be held on the ALMIS® website

 

We hold webinars every month on important industry topics. Our next webinar is on Funds Transfer Pricing, and will be held on 16 December at 10.30am.

 

Launch of New Report Writer

Posted on by Julie Duncan

We are pleased to inform you that ALMIS® launched the new report writer at its 2011 User Group Conference held in Edinburgh.

The new report writer will produce all the reports you need from one source, creating a seamless process to save valuable business time and resources.

The added functionality will provide flexible reporting to dynamically create ALCO reports and graphs, show trends and variances, produce KPI’s and dashboards, monitor prudential positions and limits, share report and graph templates.

To learn more about the report writer, please click on the link below.

New Report Writer

 

Moody’s downgrades UK financial Institutions

Posted on by Julie Duncan

>Further concerns over the state of UK banks was further exacerbated by Moody’s downgrading 12 UK institutions including 7 building societies.

by Dean Carter

 

What is more worrying, as this was an expected event, is some of the comments emerging from the ‘professional’ press. Today, one industry expert has been stating that it is always the smaller institutions that suffer, and on this occasion it is the building societies that will be most affected. He went on to state that they will now find is extremely difficult to raise funds. Not only was he not clear that he was talking about wholesale funds, but in my experience building societies have always been able to raise wholesale in some form or another and this downgrading should be no different. The potential downgrades have been in the pipeline for a number of months now and the only thing that was unexpected was the timing.

 

Unless we get the the confidence back in the market, no amount of quantitative easing or central bank support will bring back a liquid and open market. Maybe building societies need to look together at the way they raise wholesale funds and fight back against these negative press comments.

 

For further information, Dean Carter can be contacted on 07564 922761, or by email at [email protected]

 

Webinar – Using Yield Curves

Posted on by Julie Duncan

Thank you to everyone who attended our Using Yield Curves Webinar, which we run exclusively for ALMIS® users. We had a high attendance highlighting how important the topic is.

The webinar focused on how to construct and interpret a yield curve from the different interest rate markets. It demonstrated differences in the cash markets, swap rates and LIBOR futures prices.

To encourage interaction and add extra value, Dean Carter who has practical experience as a treasurer from the building society sector, joined the meeting as a guest expert.

Please feel free to download slides from Using Yield Curves Webinar

Market yield curves only give a market view, but what about your own view on future interest rates? Our Webinar Polls revealed that most (92%) believe 3 month’s LIBOR will be slightly higher in one year than it is today and the majority felt it would rise above 1% in two years time with slightly less than half believing it would rise above 1.2%. This view was compared with the futures market – which at the time has a lower expectation of a rate rise – and the forward SONIA was predicting a probability of a fall in rates.

Everyone agreed that the webinar was useful, informative, interactive, and that polls added value.

“quick way of getting a good understanding of a subject”

“very easy way to get a group of ALMIS® users together & discuss various topics”

“definately join again”

We hold webinars every month on important industry topics. Our next webinar is on interest margin variance analysis understanding margin movements, and will be held on Tuesday 1st November at 2.30pm.