Regulatory reporting may be stringent and mandatory, but it no longer has to consume time and resources from your credit union’s finance department.
Since Canadian credit unions are regulated either federally or provincially, they are required to submit comprehensive financial data and performance metrics to the proper authorities. These reports provide regulators with the information they need to monitor the health of Canada’s financial system.
Compliance with these regulations enhances the credibility of credit unions, establishing them as trustworthy and viable options for Canadians seeking financial institutions. Members of any credit union or bank want to know their funds are protected, and that the financial system they are entrusting with their savings and investments is stable and safeguarded.
Maintaining high levels of financial system stability and consumer protection in Canada is crucial, making meeting the regulations a stringent process for banking institutions. Regulations can evolve with any changes to the financial landscape, and credit unions and their finance teams may feel stretched thin if they are operating with limited resources.
Too few personnel, data fragmentation or legacy technology can hinder the vigilant reporting that is necessary to keep up with regulatory complexities and meet requirements. Legacy technology includes manual systems like spreadsheets. These programs use to be the only way, but spreadsheet applications like Excel are now considered:
- Too time consuming. Manually inputting data takes hours of time away from employees, reducing efficiency.
- Prone to errors. Mistakes are more common when an employee must input the data manually. Errors in a regulatory report could lead to reputation damage or fines.
- To have data lineage limitations. This makes it difficult to demonstrate to stakeholders how data has transformed over time.
- To be lacking visual guidance. Finding data quality issues takes more time when an individual must scroll through the spreadsheet looking for inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
- Unable to handle all of the necessary data. Regulatory reporting is demanding larger data volumes of increased complexity. Spreadsheet programs may falter and require the user to split data into segments, which is not ideal.
These difficulties of regulatory reporting and legacy technology have been addressed by BankBI, a fintech company that is dedicated to automating reporting tasks to promote efficiency at your credit union.
How BankBI Streamlines Regulatory Reporting
BankBI offers a Canadian Regulatory Reporting and Financial Performance Management solution tailored for Canadian credit unions. For the overburdened finance teams looking to make regulatory reporting easier, understand that BankBI:
- Merges source data from multiple core systems, including Celero’s Fiserv DNA™ core banking platform. BankBI will leverage extracts from your core banking system to include in the reports.
- Connects the validated data from your credit union’s core systems to the specific categories and formats prescribed by your regulators’ chart of accounts. This is ideal for any credit union across Canada, whether they are following the federal or provincial reporting formats (including CSV text file, JSON and Excel).
- Enables customization of business rules to integrate your chart of accounts and product definitions. This means the platform can suit the individual needs and requirements of your credit union.
- Establishes a detailed audit trail for your permanently archived accounts to improve the integrity and auditability of the reporting process.
With these features, BankBI offers a comprehensive automation solution, resulting in multiple benefits for your credit union:
- A reduction in manual labour, saving time and resources for the finance team
- Improved accuracy and integrity of reports, delivered when you need them in order to meet regulatory deadlines
- Minimal training required to operate the user-friendly solution allows for less dependency on key persons
While the features outlined in this blog are tailored for regulatory reporting, BankBI’s solution also includes comprehensive financial performance management. The daily generated reports create actionable insights and outline the financial health of your credit union so you can strategize and grow.
A Cloud Based Option to Ensure Security and Convenience
The security of your credit union is a top priority for Celero, which is why we feel confident in our partnership with BankBI. Deployed directly through Microsoft Azure, BankBI is a 100% cloud-based solution.
The cloud is game changing for credit unions, offering storage solutions and higher levels of security that on-premises legacy technology simply cannot match. BankBI makes a great point in their blog that the cloud is a more secure option, “…particularly when most financial institutions do not have a security budget to match the likes of Amazon and Microsoft.”
Cloud technology provides a future-proof option, offering powerful servers at a more cost-effective price than what credit unions could achieve in-house. Additionally, the cloud allows for BankBI to be accessed remotely for more convenience. This makes training remote users simpler, too.
Talk to Celero and BankBI
BankBI offers a powerful solution for Canadian credit unions to streamline regulatory reporting and financial performance management. Embrace BankBI to optimize efficiency, drive growth, and meet regulatory requirements effectively.
Celero and BankBI are hosting demos for interested credit unions. Contact your account executive or reach Celero here to set up a demo.
