The Voice of our Experts
How to ensure effective prudential and regulatory reporting in the banking sector?

Discover the interview with Aude de Chabannes, Manager in the Banking-Insurance-Consulting Department at Primexis and specialist in regulatory and ESG reporting. She shares her recent experience in a large French bank where she worked within the finance department to manage the production of all the regulatory reports on the liquidity chain.

She talks about the challenges she encountered, such as the changes in standards, transitioning towards extra-financial data (ESG and CSR), the volume of data to be produced, and reporting under extremely tight deadlines.

• Tell us about your last assignment. 

 Recently, I worked within a finance department of a large French banking group. I was in charge of managing the production of all the regulatory reports on the liquidity chain. In concrete terms, what does that mean? They are simply reports that enable us to make sure that the bank has enough cash in the face of a financial crisis.   

In my day-to-day assignment, I did not produce indicators but rather made sure that they could be produced under the best conditions. It is a bit as if I were a conductor who had to coordinate a multitude of musicians to play the same score. In the framework of this bank, there were more than 100 people working to produce these reports.   

In more concrete terms, I monitored all the steps of the production chain.  

Firstly, with the preparatory phase: I led the coordination committees that brought together business and IT teams to define the reporting schedule and to indicate changes or areas needing attention.  

Once up and running, I was in charge of monitoring production, acting as a link between the IT and business teams to guarantee that every step was running smoothly. I communicated daily with the operational and management teams about the progress of production. Of course, there were unforeseen incidents (unavailability of data, tools, etc.). This was when I performed crisis management. And this is when the challenge was to come up with solutions quickly, given the very tight deadlines for producing the figures.  

Once the production was done, then came the assessment. I systematically made a debriefing committee to go over the reporting successes and areas for improvement. I offered solutions to solve them and implemented them within the business and IT teams.  

• What are the main challenges your clients face? 

 In my various assignments, I have noticed that our clients face the same challenges:  

First of all, the changes in standards: regulations are constantly changing for our clients. We are seeing a major phenomenon. We are moving from producing financial data to extra-financial data with all the ESG and CSR subjects.  

Secondly, our clients have a very specific activity since they specialize in financial products that have an impact on the growth of a country. For this reason, they are very closely monitored and must produce an enormous amount of reporting within extremely tight deadlines.  

The third challenge for our clients is managing their data. On the one hand, they must manage an important volume of their data and store it, and on the other hand, they must continually improve the quality of their data.   

•  How did you handle these challenges, and what solutions did you implement?  
   

In my last assignment, my task was to manage the entire production chain by guaranteeing the on-time delivery of reporting.  

To improve the quality of the data, I made correction requests to the IT team. Given the number of requests, I helped them prioritize the issues according to their impact and degree of urgency. 

I helped the client save time by automating tasks. I also secured all processes by implementing corrections and new features. And lastly, I developed in-house training by setting up procedures.   

For ESG, I wanted to go even further and took further training. I received the French Financial Markets Authority Sustainable Finance (AMF Finance Durable) certification. I am now passing on my knowledge to the firm’s other employees by creating a training program that helps them with assignments to assist clients with the regulations and requirements of this new field. 

• How do you maintain effective communication with your client during your assignment?  

During my assignments, I like  to organize regular check-ins with the client, either on the phone or by email, if the client doesn’t have the time. I think it is really a key to success to have regular, transparent discussions.  

And then, there are always unexpected situations! In any case, we always find a solution.  

For example, we were running a computer process that wasn’t working. It was impossible to predict, and we were already behind schedule. So, I organized a crisis call with the client and with the other people affected by the problem and offered multiple solutions. 

• Can you share some best practices you reccomend? 

I learned to determine the importance of a problem and manage stress. A crisis meeting should above all be occasional, short, and constructive. The goal isn’t so much to find someone to blame but to find a solution. This applies to everyday life too! So, one of the rules before starting a meeting is to remind everyone of the objective to be achieved and the priorities. 

A piece of advice for getting the right people into a crisis and communication meeting is to answer these 3 questions :  

• Who must make the decision about the solution? 

• Who must implement this decision?  

• Who will be affected by the problem or the solution? 

Do you want to optimize your compliance with the regulatory and prudential obligations or implement financial and extra-financial regulatory reports? Our team, with their extensive operational and consulting experience, is available to help. To find out more about our Prudential, Regulatory, and ESG Reporting offering, click here.

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The interview is available on Primexis’ YouTube channel.