Small and medium sized banks are disproportionately affected by the costs of Basel II compliance. Apart from meeting their regulatory obligations, banks that comply with Basel II stand to benefit from having better risk management, facilitating daily monitoring of transactions and assessing and controlling risks as they arise. FERNBACH's new programme enables banks to minimise and contain the costs of Basel II compliance so that they can start reaping the benefits sooner.

The programme begins with a Pragmatic Gap Analysis. Within two weeks this will give banks a clear vision of the data required, an assessment of the bank's current situation relative to its compliance requirements, an estimate of the work required to achieve compliance, and a step-by-step guide to fully meeting Basel II requirements.

The programme is completed by the FlexFinance Basel II Ready to Go software. This uses templates and pre-configured parameters for compliance with the Standard approach. It is delivered with a catalogue of 50 financial instruments already embedded. The software is implemented within six weeks.

Basel II and IFRS require the same deal, market and static data and have similar requirements for processing and reporting data marts Because of the similarities between Basel II and IFRS, implementing FlexFinance® Basel II also brings banks closer to IFRS compliance.

"With this programme, we're making it easier for smaller banks to speed up their compliance initiatives," said Günther Fernbach, CEO, FERNBACH Software. "Basel II and IFRS are complex domains, but by using pre-parameterised processes and predefined templates, banks can use proven techniques and avoid having to reinvent the wheel. The entire FERNBACH suite is based on predefined templates which are the result of our 20 years of experience in financial services."