RABOBANK AND DUCO RAISE THE BAR ON DATA QUALITY FOR MIFID RECONCILIATIONS

By Rewan Tremethick, Content Manager.

Duco empowers Rabobank to conduct complex regulatory reconciliations to a high standard legacy systems weren’t able to reach.

Rabobank approached Duco at the start of 2020. They were embarking on a project to elevate their regulatory reconciliations to bring them in line with their high standards.

Their existing legacy technology was unable to cope with the complexity and scope of their regulatory data. Rabobank has zero appetite for regulatory risk, and so set a self-imposed deadline to improve their MIFID reconciliations.

Rabobank wanted a flexible solution that would enable them to build regulatory reconciliations quickly and identify breaks more accurately.

For Joyce Verschaeren, Head OC&S at Rabobank, partnering with Duco was the choice.

Seeking the agility to meet regulatory challenges

Rabobank saw an opportunity to greatly improve the quality of their regulatory reconciliations. They have very high standards for their regulatory data, and their existing legacy system was struggling to meet them. ‘Our risk appetite for regulatory risk is actually zero,’ Joyce explains.

Finding the source of breaks was virtually impossible with existing systems, because they reconciled on a trade level rather than a field level.

‘Existing systems just told you that there was a break, not where exactly. So you had to go back and investigate to find the source: we had to run a reconciliation within a reconciliation.’

Rabobank wanted to improve their processes and set a tight deadline for doing so. This meant they needed a system that was fast and flexible. One that could be implemented much quicker than a legacy system or a bespoke in-house solution.

‘We needed an intuitive and fast-learning system that could deliver all we needed,’ Joyce says. ‘If we wanted a solution that could be set up in a short period of time, we needed to be daring. I was a strong believer that Duco would be able to help us. And so they did.’

Duco makes identifying exceptions easy, regardless of data width

With Duco, Rabobank is able to run reconciliations with over 60 fields and see exactly where breaks are occurring.

‘I’d rate the speed of set-up, and the ability to automate formerly manual/legacy processes very highly,’ Joyce says. ‘The fact the platform is data agnostic is good, but what’s even better is the output. Lots of systems are data agnostic but the output isn’t clear.’

‘Duco can give us the output to actually handle the exceptions. The platform has a really useful, user friendly way of showing the output, which makes it easy to see what’s happening.’

Duco has already saved Rabobank hundreds of hours in investigation time. But because the existing systems couldn’t handle the width of the data, it’s hard to put a true number on it, Joyce says.

‘With Duco we were finally able to reach the high level of quality we strived for in regulatory reconciliations.’

‘A project with a really high success rate’

Rabobank was able to get up and running with Duco quickly, onboarding 8 highly complex regulatory reconciliations three times faster than the industry average.

‘For me, this is really a project with a really high success rate. Duco delivered what they promised. There was a really good respect for each other, it was/is a real partnership.’

Duco’s Global Services team have supported Rabobank throughout the partnership, and started by building the first few reconciliations.

‘Because we thought our old recs were so complex we wanted Duco to build them themselves, so that we could learn how they did it. But Duco is very easy to set up and the team was able to show us how to use it.’

The team at Rabobank were quickly brought up to speed and began building their own reconciliations a few weeks after the first recs were delivered. Duco’s global services team remained at their disposal to answer any technical questions.

‘I am amazed with the level of knowledge and their proactiveness,’ Joyce said. ‘They were always approachable and always there with an answer. We called them a few times and they were always happy to answer, and even with technical questions the response times were very quick.’

Rabobank looks to cut regulatory risk further by replacing legacy technology with Duco

The initial project with Duco was such a ‘huge success’ that Rabobank is looking to increase its use of Duco’s data integrity solution further.

The bank intends to ramp up the migration of reconciliations from their legacy system to Duco. They also have an in-house solution, as well as a small number of manual processes, that they are looking to replace. ‘We don’t want to have too many different tools,’ Joyce explains.

According to Joyce, what makes Duco the perfect strategic partner for Rabobank is the similar outlook of the two organisations:

‘What I really like throughout Duco – from the CEO to the Customer Success team – is that “can do it” mentally. I don’t feel any distance, or any attitude, a true cooperative mind set, just like Rabobank.’