I rely upon CREDO as a proven solution for heavy duty reporting under tight deadlines.
The software’s watertight auditability offers me peace of mind; it ensures that calculation methodologies remain unchanged without my explicit authorization, and no results find their way into the general ledger without my formal sign-off. Furthermore, auditors can meticulously examine calculation details, affirming that all computations align precisely with documented procedures.
In the face of unexpected crises in recent years, CREDO’s exceptional flexibility, particularly in its management overlay and the ability to swiftly conduct ad hoc stress testing, has proven invaluable. The prospect of evolving EBA requirements for management overlays does not daunt me; I’m confident that Credo will effortlessly meet these demands.
Despite operating within a large bank, our team’s pool of technical experts in IFRS9 remains limited. However, key person risk has diminished significantly. CREDO’s transparent parameterization of essential IFRS9 know-how ensures effective knowledge transfer. Consequently, when an expert transitions out of the team, newcomers adeptly step in.
The ability to compute both IFRS9 and local GAAP impairments using a single tool has significantly reduced costs for our overburdened team. The quarterly stress of generating our F12 disclosure using our previous in-house solution, which required manually assembling various results, has been replaced by merely pushing a button and collecting results.
Our Group spans multiple countries, each functioning within its own isolated workspace. As the Group CFO, I have access to impairment calculations across various consolidation levels from any Group entity. The reports available in the software offer invaluable managerial insights, providing the precise information I need, precisely when I need it.
I appreciate CREDO's stress testing features, especially in meeting the increasing demands of regulators regarding EBA and ESG stress testing.
In the past, stress testing within our team was a complex process, involving a patchwork of risk tools, scripts, and Excel spreadsheets scattered across our team drive. Even the technical experts directly responsible for stress testing often found got lost in this mountain of information.
Thanks to CREDO, our stress testing inventory is now conveniently centralized and meticulously documented. CREDO consolidates the key elements of each stress test, streamlining the process from inception to execution. Once a new stress test is defined in terms of data, scenarios, and models, it can be effortlessly executed. Results remain available for immediate analysis, and previous runs can be repeated at any time, should regulators or external auditors have inquiries later on.
We’re running many more stress test than before because stress testing has become a lot easier. The same holds for impact studies, sensitivity analyses, and ad hoc runs conducted to derive management overlays during unforeseen periods of stress not accounted for by our models. CREDO ensures that all documentation remains orderly, facilitating easy retrieval and comprehension of past stress tests.
Previously, our stress testing efforts were limited by the capacity of our servers. Transitioning to SaaS has markedly improved things in this respect. Thanks to the scalable resources of the Cloud, we now have access to ample computing power and memory, ensuring we can conduct intensive stress testing without many constraints.
I find that Credo respects my modelling freedom and allows me to focus on what really matters: risk modelling.
There has been a substantial reduction in time spent on preparation and execution of impairment runs since adopting CREDO. With its adept handling of number crunching, including the management of our expanding suite of IFRS9 runs, our efficiency has improved. While CREDO’s standard models serve most of our needs, we’ve seamlessly integrated our specific in-house models as well. These custom models run seamlessly within CREDO, without compromising on speed or accuracy.
Noting CREDO’s flexibility in computing both IFRS9 and IRB transactional model parameters, we took a strategic leap by aligning our IRB and IFRS9 modelling setup. This consolidation into a single set of models, with nuanced parameterizations, has further alleviated our operational burden.
We spend more time on impairment calculations for stress testing, as well as various sensitivity and impact analyses than on regular IFRS9 reporting runs. CREDO naturally lends itself to these activities; it is very easy to perform ‘what if’ studies in which any aspect of a calculation is modified. This contrasts our prior in-house setup, eliminating the need to piece together multiple solutions for stress testing. Completed analyses remain accessible for future review, a significant departure from our earlier project drive, on which we could no longer see the forest for the trees.
Upon finalizing a run, CREDO’s integrated flexible dashboarding solution provides immediate access to results, eliminating the data warehouse synchronization delays experienced in the past. Moreover, CREDO’s drill-down functionality enables meticulous manual recalculations for individual contracts, a vital feature especially when incorporating our proprietary in-house developments. For the most intricate analyses, we seamlessly export results for further exploration into R, Python, or SAS.
Navigating upgrades for our on-premises risk and finance tools presents considerable challenges. Transitioning to a SaaS solution like CREDO has significantly streamlined our operations.
Most of our IT responsibilities have been seamlessly outsourced. CREDO provides server capacity and takes care of key operations tasks, in collaboration with a world-class IT support organization available 24/7 across the Globe.
Our duties revolve around facilitating a secure data feed to and from CREDO, managing role-based access within the solution using our in-house authentication provider, and parameterizing administrative functionalities within the software.
Software upgrades for a complex IFRS9 solution can be challenging. They are now taken care of by CREDO as well, which us saves a considerable amount of time and energy. Only business testing, in coordination with CREDO, remains on our side.
As a bank, we focus heavily on IT security and GDPR compliance. We are happy to partner with a service provider like CREDO, which shares our concerns and maintains a zero-tolerance policy for security and privacy. CREDO offers robust assurances and readily engages with our specialists to address any questions or concerns that may arise.