The trigger for the evaluation of the Financial Studio platform was the Basel II capital accord. The bank has opted to initially apply the Standardized Approach for external reporting, and subsequently implement the more advanced IRB Foundation approach. Its existing software was not able to produce the data required for COREP (Basel II) and FINREP (IFRS) reports, which meant it needed to upgrade its systems with a new platform.

Besides the availability and proven functionalities of its software, FinArch helped the bank not only meeting tight regulatory deadlines, but also gave the bank immediate support in its choice for more advanced methods of capital requirements reduction. Moreover, given the bank's ambitious Basel II program, FinArch successfully managed to convey and re-establish the level of comfort required to confidently face regulatory challenges - not only with award-winning software but also through its professional attitude in promptly responding to more specific requests of smaller and medium sized customers like Friesland Bank.

Financial Studio provides Friesland Bank with the required calculation engines to ensure Basel II compliance and at the same time fully covers comprehensive compliance reporting including COREP, FINREP and local DNB reporting. At the same time, the Financial Studio platform provides a direct option to further expand usage into other areas such as accounting and MIS.

The data feed from Friesland Bank's data warehouse to the Financial Studio is already running very smoothly; within barely 6 weeks after kick-off of the implementation project, FinArch has already produced the first COREP calculations and reports in line with the regulatory requirements of DNB.

Klaas de Boer, Director Planning & Control comments: "After exploring several possible solutions intensively, Friesland Bank concluded that FinArch offers the best combination of a solid, future proof Basel II reporting solution and a predictable implementation trajectory."

Frédéric Simons, VP Regional Development at FinArch says: "We at FinArch understood Friesland Bank's compliance and performance objectives and - after we received a status quo of the project deliverables and milestones to date - successfully identified actual requirements from both longer term business and regulatory perspective."

He continues that "thanks to our proven track record of successfully supporting banks in the execution of their compliance programs and the existence of critically required functionalities and regulatory reports, we managed to leverage existing technology investments."

"Furthermore", he concludes, "seen that 'time to compliance' was of critical essence, we succeeded in providing the necessary assurances to Friesland Bank and conveying the confidence that the bank will be able to fully continue its full Basel II journey and that the project would be completed before the compulsory deadline."

Financial Studio has proven to meet all Friesland Bank's requirements. It covers all relevant IAS/IFRS requirements for both internal and external reporting, provides extended audit trail and drill down functionality and fully supports Basel II/Pillar 3 reporting as it relates to credit risk exposures before and after credit risk mitigation and includes a variety of standard reporting functions. Financial Studio enables automated compliance with reporting requirements from regulatory authorities, management, and head offices as it helps to ensure the accuracy and integrity of financial reports.

The Financial Studio FRP platform embraces accounting, risk management, MIS and compliance solutions, and is used by numerous financial institutions worldwide. FinArch is also positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Basel II software applications.