Absa Capital, in affiliation with Barclays Capital offers corporate and investment banking services, acting as an intermediary between, and adviser to, suppliers and users of various forms of capital in South Africa and across the continent.
The Challenge
Accurately assess and manage core client static data in support of both the Absa Group and Barclays Capital’s Advanced Internal Ratings Based (AIRB) approaches to Credit Risk reporting • Leverage the shared client static data across both the Absa Group and Barclays Capital to support collaboration with other business units both locally and internationally.
The Goal
Ensure that the Group has the correct levels of capital and liquidity to meet its business requirements • Increase collaboration with other business units both within the Absa Group and within Barclays capital.
Fully local and fully global
Absa Capital provides investment banking, financing, risk management and advisory solutions across asset classes to corporations, financial institutions and government clients. These capabilities are delivered through a client-centric approach that emphasizes the distribution of risk and leverages the local and international expertise of both the Absa Group and Barclays Capital.
Absa Capital continues to improve on its existing portfolio of credit risk models, and the infrastructure used to deliver them to users, within the credit sanctioning and approval process. The migration to AIRB provides further insight into the drivers of credit risk within the portfolio.
Data Quality Dependent
The business recognises that an ongoing focus on data quality is required in order to maintain and improve on these achievements. To this end, a decision was made to invest in a data quality platform that would provide the basis for automated data profiling and cleansing across the business, as well as to provide a data metrics and reconciliation framework to enable root cause analysis and data improvement projects.
After evaluation of a number of solutions the business selected the Trillium Software System based on its superior ease-of-use, strong South African and global rules engines, and the demonstrated professional services capability of local Trillium Software partner, Master Data Management.
“As a bank that places our customers at the centre of what we do, client static data underpins everything. From identifying new opportunities, to credit risk management, to accurate regulatory reporting, quality data is essential. We wanted partners with both strong technology and solid local expertise, and MDM and Trillium Software met our requirements.” said Ian Kriegler, CIO, Absa Capital.
Successful Deployment Absa Capital is differentiated due to the strong relationships with both the Absa Group and Barclays Capital. While this alliance provides significant business opportunities, the challenge for both IT and business is to maintain the accuracy of core data across systems for both partners, and also continue to provide accurate regulatory reports in both South Africa and the United Kingdom.
The initial project to address this complexity for the core client static data set was delivered within three months.
Enterprise Data Governance
The Trillium Software System has been configured to provide core data quality metrics in support of Absa Capital’s enterprise data governance program.
Data quality is a business issue and our goal was to enable business to take ownership of data quality, by providing them with a tool that they are able to use themselves. The Trillium Software System met this requirement,” said Marésa Bekker, Data Quality Manager at Absa Capital. “Now that business can accurately assess the impact of perceived data quality issues we are able to manage these effectively.”
This practical approach to data governance allows both business and IT to do root cause analysis and focus resources on genuine issues, rather on perceived issues they may not even have existed.
This focus supports all strategic IT projects by enabling reuse and focus and is in line with Absa Capital’s ongoing initiative to streamline operations and increase accuracy and consistency throughout the trading life cycle.
