The focus of exprio is the business and functional area. We support departments and change departments with the specification and coordination of new requirements stemming from regulation or internally-driven projects. For this purpose we prepare complex issues in a simple and comprehensible way and discuss these with depending departments as well as IT staff. Our experts are working on the basis of a broad technical understanding of processes within global markets. We are familiar with the latest regulatory developments and are aware of the numerous dependencies that go along with the new requirements. For the implementation of regulatory projects, it is important that the typical theoretical requirements are quickly transformed into practical functional requirements.
This guarantees that the latest developments in capital markets are taken into account on the basis of our projects. We always have the whole picture in mind and see a unique and comprehensive offering for our customers by looking at our understanding and knowledge in the area of capital market infrastructure. With exprio your staff is always up to date with decisions given recent developments and trends of other competitors. Highest priority has process efficiency which is ensured by using up-to date business process management expertise. Beside the new regulatory requirements, second-order effects need to be taken into account. There has been extensive developments particularly in credit risk management. The cost pressure and new complex processes should be optimized with a sophisticated business process management. We use the right methods and tools individually for your institution.
Regulation
The increasing regulatory requirements in the financial sector had and still have an impact on processes, risk positioning, and organizational structures of financial institutions. Important processes and structures that have been implemented or adjusted under budget and time constraints often pose great optimisation potential. Modern methods of business process management are an important factor to develop sustainable solutions and efficiently deal with complex requirements. Our experts have experience with numerous regulatory requirements in the area of the capital market:
Capital Markets Infrastructure
Our expertise lies in the consulting of capital market related issues. Our experts have gathered experience with various market participants within capital markets. We support our clients front to back, from Front Office via Middle Office to Back Office and also in Accounting and Reporting. It is no longer possible just to look at a single functional department, as new process chains driven by regulation increased dependency between the different areas. Capital or liquidity requirements are no longer driven only by trade but also through downstream factors such as the type of counterparty (bilateral or CCP) and the type of collateral (cash collateral or alternative collateral). In the same way, these downstream processes also affect trading, the result is cycle, which has to be met with extensive knowledge and expertise. We see the biggest challenge in the structured integration of various functions in the infrastructure, including data management, calculation methods, and the subsequent reporting.
The graphics in this section describe the central aspects of capital market infrastructure. Trading, netting, collateral and reporting can be done in different ways and motivated by different reasons. The increasing standardization of infrastructure of various business areas is core to improve and optimize processes. Especially the derivatives market and the market for securities financing transactions have step by step a common infrastructure. Here we see a great potential for a standard embedding of different functional requirements and significant savings in the system- and process-related infrastructure.
Credit Risk Management
Credit risk management has gained more attention on the back of the financial crisis, it is one of the core requirements of a bank to to assess the creditworthiness of their clients. The financial crisis has first and foremost affected the business activity and has raised strategic questions about the activity in specific segments. The numerous regulatory requirements that sustainably transform the credit risk management and the methods with which the credit risk is assessed have a more important impact.
In terms of derivatives business and the market for securities financing transactions, requirements such as the CRR and also the new requirements under EMIR have initiated significant changes in methods credit risk management, especially with respect to the collateralization of OTC derivatives. Thus, our experts have accompanied extensive new features to identify and deal with wrong-way risk and also the eligibility of collateral for the determination of the net exposure, so-called haircuts. The list of methods is long, not every institution will definitely need them. However, one should not miss fundamental new developments and adaptations.
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As part of our consulting services, we set a high priority on a pre-defined structured approach. Method without content is useless and delivers no benefit. However, combining expertise with modern management methods and therefore increase the degree of structure and standardization can lead to significantly reduced complexity and efficient results. From our point of view, methods are not a deliverable in itself, we use them as a tool with which we want to finally deliver clean and structured business deliverables in order to prepare your institution for todays challenging environment.
The three essential pillars dominate our name, because exprio stands for experts in processes, risk and organization. Our special attention is on the business process management – BPM. The BPM has not received much attention so far in financial institutions. Although you can usually find a small department that uses tools such as ARIS, ADONIS or MS Visio these tools are never used with the right approach to really improve existing business processes. Our approach encourages these departments by communicating the advantages of these tools especially in terms of processes. While it is not important for us which tools and languages are in use (ARIS, ADONIS, signavio, etc.), we go along your preference or use what is suited best for the specific task.
Our strategic expertise is built up by economic analysis and selection processes of service providers in the area of capital market infrastructure (E.g. Trading platforms, clearing broker, central counterparties or collateral agents). We also assisted the introduction of service providers or systems and are used to work at different levels. From the decision makers to the developers, we don’t deliver fragmentary work but finally bring our ideas into production.
The organisational competences are resulting mostly from projects in which we had to integrate new functions driven by regulation (e.g. introduction of new responsibilities for reporting requirements). Also the adaptation of organizational structures for the introduction of efficient business process management is one of our areas of expertise.
Procedural advice, using modern methods and systems of process management is one of our key areas of competence. The aim is to improve the communication between departments and between departments and IT. We observed such improvements several times and we thus see an offer that can be ideally integrated into projects without additional costs but with additional benefit with respect to communication purposes.
We have experience in the functional and technical specification of requirements. A structured, tabular record of system requirements is essential for a implementation and the tracking of business and functional requirements. Beside that we implement requirements with an ongoing monitoring and cost management, as used in particular at major international companies.
Thomas Simon and Christoph Kopp, “Neue Spielregeln für die Besicherung von OTC-Derivaten: Der Teufel steckt im Detail”, DIE BANK (6/2017)
Thomas Simon and Felix Offermann, “Wertpapierfinanzierung: Standardisierung der Infrastruktur schreitet voran”, DIE BANK (9/2016)
Thomas Simon and Moritz von Medem, “Collateral Management: Nicht zu viel und nicht zu wenig”, DIE BANK (06/2014)
Lars Ritter and Thomas Simon, “Transaktionsregister: Viele Wege führen nach Rom”, DIE BANK (02/2013)
Karsten Meyer and Thomas Simon, “Steuerung der Risikopositionen im Spannungsfeld der Derivateregulierung”, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Kreditwesen (14/2012)
