Surya Newsletter
March 2015
Client Speak
“Surya-soft’s BALM software provides Axis Bank with a Bank-wide asset liability management system capable of handling granular ALM data for both its domestic as well as overseas operations on a daily basis as well as consolidate liquidity positions using BALM consolidator. It offers the Bank an enhanced platform to meet its liquidity and interest rate risk monitoring and analytics requirements in addition to meeting regulatory and internal reporting needs. “
– Mr. Pravat Dash, SVP & Head (Market Risk), Axis Bank
New Implementations
BALM and FTP are now live at Doha Bank
With operations at Qatar, Kuwait & UAE, Doha Bank is the largest commercial bank in Gulf region. Doha Bank offers Islamic as well as conventional banking products.
Doha Bank required an enhanced ALM platform to meet its ALM monitoring and analytics requirements, in addition to internal and regulatory reporting including Basel III regulations. Doha Bank required a Transfer Pricing System to measure profitability using transfer pricing approach for Products and Relationship Managers.
To meet above requirements, Doha Bank chose Surya as a partner. Surya implemented BALM, an Asset Liability Management Solution and FTP, a Funds Transfer Pricing Solution. BALM and FTP have been implemented at Qatar, Kuwait and UAE operations of Doha Bank. BALM Consolidator has been implemented to consolidate Balance Sheet positions of all 3 operations at Head Office level.
BALM was implemented in a short span of 4 months time. FTP implementation took an incremental time of 2 months. Having implemented BALM and FTP, Doha Bank could substantially reduce the time required to generate ALM and FTP outputs as compared to the previous system. Users are able to spend more time in analysis of output reports than worrying about the data quality and time requirements.
BALM is now live at Bharatiya Mahila Bank
Bhartiya Mahila Bank, India was one of the 3 banks to be awarded banking licence by Reserve Bank of India in 2013. BMB works towards inclusive and sustainable growth of women across the strata of society through banking.
BMB chose to implement BALM. Using BALM, BMB now can meet analytics and reporting requirements from both regulatory and internal reporting perspective. BALM was implemented in association with FIS Global.
BMB now confidently submits ALM related regulatory reports to Reserve Bank of India. Daily ALM reports are being generated accurately and on timely manner.
BALM, Call Report Generator and Credit Scoring System are now live at Malawi Savings Bank
Malawi Savings Bank is a Government bank based in Malawi. MSB required an ALM system to measure liquidity and interest rate risks. It required a Credit Scoring System to measure and manage its asset quality, credit worthiness of prospective and existing customer. MSB required a call report generator to generate a set of 55 reports that are required to be submitted to Reserve Bank of Malawi. Call reports may be classified in categories like of Capital Risk, Credit Risk, Market Risk, Liquidity Risk and Operational Risk.
MSB implemented BALM, SMERATE and CallR-RBM to meet above requirements. MSB is now equipped to generate analytics and reports with high degree of data accuracy and on time. During implementation Surya worked with MSB to help bank improve data quality.
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Fixed Asset Management System is now implemented at Oriental Bank of Commerce, India
With 2500+ branches, OBC is one of the largest public sector banks in India. OBC faced a significant challenge to track location, quantity, condition, maintenance and depreciation status of its fixed assets. To overcome this challenge, OBC was looking to implement an automated solution to manage complete life cycle of its fixed assets. OBC evaluated 3 fixed asset management solutions and chose to implement Surya’s FAM.
FAM has been implemented across all branches of OBC. OBC now uses FAM to manage full life cycle assets like ATMs, premises, vehicles, furnitures and fixtures, electronics, lockers and cabinets, strong rooms, coin vending machines note counting machines and counterfeit note detectors. Migration of data proved to be a major challenge in this project. Surya helped OBC to identify data quality issues that required attention.
With implementation of FAM, the services division of OBC can now centrally manage assets, check asset quality and track asset movements. Depreciation using Straight Line and Written Down Value methods is now calculated accurately and is available on time.
Axis Bank upgrades to latest version of CCRMS
Having operations in 6 countries outside India, it becomes imperative for Axis Bank to track direct and indirect foreign currency exposures. While direct exposures are easy to track from core bank system, consolidation possess a challenge. In addition Bank required a system that will help to track indirect exposures. To meet this requirement, Surya proposed to implement Country Concentration Risk Management System. CCRMS was implemented at Axis Bank in the year 2010. In 2014, users came up with additional requirements like further classification of exposures and to include workflow for the branch to get foreign currency transaction approval from Risk Management Team. To meet these new requirements, Surya proposed to upgrade CCRMS.
The latest version of CCRMS allows bank to make proactive business decisions based on risk intelligence while operating inline with regulatory demands and supporting growth opportunities. CCRMS helps Axis Bank with exposure monitoring, limit monitoring and provision calculation for domestic and overseas branches. Regulatory reports generated using CCRMS are Balance Sheet Disclosures, RBI Section 10, Short Term exposure and Country Exposure.
Karur Vasya Bank – BALM Upgrade with Basel III Liquidity Ratios
Karur Vysya Bank is one of the leading commercial bank in India with total asset size over USD 6 Billion. Surya has implemented BALM at KVB in year 2008. Since then ALM scenario in India has changed drastically. Major changes include, adoption of Basel III guideline, implementation of XBRL reporting formats and changes in Liquidity and Interest Rate Risk reports. BALM too has been substantially upgraded both from technology and functionality perspective. BALM 3.x is now a multi device client access system. Interface programs have been upgrade to reduce batch processing time. To meet changes in ALM requirements and leverage upgrades of BALM 3.x, KVB choose to upgrade to BALM 3.1 .
BALM 3.1 helps Bank to comply with latest reporting requirements of Reserve Bank of India which include LCR, NSFR, LR, IRS-T, IRS-D, MVE and Stock Approach ratios. RBI required reports may be exported to XBRL format. Upgraded BALM interface control batches will substantially reduce the time require to process data.
New Product Release
One View
‘One View’ is a risk dashboard that contains key indicators of Risk Return and Capital. Key indicators of risk include information on Liquidity Risk, Interest Rate Risk, Credit Risk. Key indicators of Return include information on Return on Equity, Return on Assets, Earnings per Share and more. Key indicators of capital include information on RWA, CRAR, Capital Classification and Leverage Ratio.
‘One View’ is source system agnostic which means that data may be sourced from other systems as well. ‘One View’ runs on Apple and Windows tablets. May be accessed through internet explorers like Chrome, IE and Safari.
New Service Offerings
Microsoft AX Web Configurator
AX screens generally consists of 100+ fields in one screen. Generally 10-15 fields are relevant to a user. Having 100+ fields increases data entry time and posses risk of entering undesired information. Moreover AX screens are not web-based – hence requires more bandwidth.
To overcome, Surya proposes to build custom screens, limit number of entry fields and default the rest. Custom screens are web based hence requires less bandwidth. It makes AX user intuitive. Screens are created using AppBrahma, a code generator developed internally within Surya. AppBrahma ensures that the development is quick, error free and makes screens easily modifiable in future.
Test Services
Websites are now being accessed through multiple devices, browsers, versions of a browser, and from multiple operating system versions. Objective is to have custom experience tuned to the mode of access. To achieve this, web pages need to be tested from multiple devices and browsers.
Surya has created a center of excellence which specialises in testing web pages across various browsers, operating systems and devices. Advantages of outsourcing such services are multi folds- provides an extended unit with ability to scale & de-scale in weeks, considerable cost advantage with substantial control.
Surya test unit consists a team of 20+ test specialists with time tested methodologies, automation components and reporting systems in place. This unit is handling websites of a large fashion house based in Paris.