15th June 2015
Bulletin: ACS partner with SureStep Risk Management – SureStep are built on the IBM Risk Analytics family of products including IBM OpenPages and Algorithmics. With years of experience working across multiple industries.
Matt Good commented “I am delighted to be working in partnership with SureStep, they are renowned for delivering and have done so time and time again across multiple industries. SureStep provides software and advisory solutions that ensures companies reach their goals of performance and corporate social responsibility. They will make a great alliance extending both these organisations ability and agility in global deliveries.”
15th April 2015 – Equity Partners Required
The continued success of the Practice is the top agenda item for the CEO and Board. As the next phase of growth, ACS is expanding the practice capabilities within key industry verticals and seeking a world-class consultants and leaders to help expand the consulting practice.
The individual
As a Partner of ACS you will provide inspiring leadership on multiple dimensions – senior client leadership, industry thought leadership, and collaborative leadership within the Practice.
If you are interested in finding out more about this opportunity please call our CEO, Matt Good on +44 (0)207 078 1906 or 07789 771624 (Monday to Friday only). Alternatively email your details to matt.good@acs-consulting.co.uk. All applications will be dealt with in confidence.
26th February 2015 – Chairman of ACS in top 100 most influential people in Big Data.
Bulletin: Paul Forrest has been voted into the top 100 most influential people in Big Data. The announcement was made at the annual DataIQ Big Data 100 event on 25th February 2015 at the Kensington Roof Gardens.
Matt Good commented “I am delighted that our Chairman has been recognised within his this field. His outstanding expertise and contribution to the Big Data arena is now being recognised outside of our firm. This is good news for everyone.”]
12th January 2015 – ACS announce Paul Forrest as Chairman. .
Bulletin: Matt Good announced Paul Forrest as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Matt Good commented:
“I am delighted that Paul Forrest has accepted the role of Chairman to the Board of Directors. Paul has a wealth of experience in helping businesses to solve complex business problems, deliver their transformation goals and to achieve tangible strategic outcomes. Paul has held senior leadership positions in multiple global advisory firms. He has advised boards at over 40% of the FTSE 100 and multiple fortune 500 corporations. Paul also sits on the board of a number of agile, disruptive organisations. We are looking forwrad to working cloesly with Paul over the next two to three years, as part of the ACS accelerated growth programme.”
31st December 2014 – ACS agrees to hold the Masterclass From Raw Data to Analytics Driven Outcomes
Bulletin: By popular demand, ACS has agreed to host a Masterclass for business leaders.
The SMi Group, a highly Professional, Independent and Global company that specialises in the production of Business-to-Business Conferences, Workshops and in the Defence, Security, Energy, Utilities, Finance and Pharmaceutical sectors has asked us if we would host a bespoke Masterclass. The subject of the day event From Raw Data to Analytics Driven Outcomes will take place in London on the 9th of March 2015 and it will cover topics such as Data Management Principles, Customer Data Analytics, Big Data and Surveillance Analytics.
9th October 2014: ACS key support for Fintech 2014, Edinburgh
Bulletin: ACS today presented at the 2014 Fintech Summit in Edinburgh, “Modernising Financial Services”.
We talked alongside the FCA and various banking leaders about how technology is transforming the face of financial services. Our presentation outlined changing demands (regulatory, customer and business) and the perplexity of choice created by megatrend and different investment areas. Complementing the FCA’s new “Project Innovate”, we described some of the bleeding edge user cases that are now available to the industry, and how game changing technologies (that ACS are now partnered with) are starting to define and shape the future of regulatory compliance.
10th September 2014: ACS Big Data Consulting
Bulletin: ACS Expand Offering Around Big Data
Matt Good, managing partner, today revealed:
“I am very excited to announce the arrival of our big data consultancy arm. We have recently partnered with a number of leading edge big data technology vendors, primarily focussing on structuring unstructured data, and how that technology can be harnessed to provide cutting edge solutions in the regulatory compliance domain. Traditionally, these firms have not operated within the financial services space. Our strategic partnerships harness our domain expertise and financial services technology implementation experience together with the latest cutting edge technical solutions. We have a good view of the capability of these solutions and their delivery within the FS sector. Importantly, we have the thought leadership on how these solutions are best applied within our regulatory compliance and specifically, conduct risk frameworks. This is exciting times for the industry and we are pleased to be at the forefront of the conduct risk issue.”
7th July 2014 ACS Delivers Strategic Group Risk and Regulatory Reporting Platform at a Global Bank.
Bulletin: ACS supply global banking client with end-to-end delivery of a strategic consolidated platform for Group and Divisional Regulatory, MI and other external stakeholder reporting purposes.
Overview of solution delivered:
30th June 2014 PRA seeks consultation around credit risk mitigation, credit risk, governance, and market risk.
Bulletin: The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) publishes Consultation Paper that sets out the proposed changes to the PRA’s rules and supervisory statements in the areas of credit risk mitigation, credit risk, governance, and market risk.
The paper seeks views on:
26th June 2014 PRA clarifies Capital and Leverage Ratio expectations.
Bulletin: The PRA has published a supervisory statement to clarifies its expectations in relation to capital and leverage ratios for the eight major UK banks and building societies (“firms”).
“Firms will be expected to meet:
14th May 2014 Bank of England – Inflation Report
Bulletin: The much anticipated Bank of England Inflation Report was published today and inferred that we could see base interest rate start to move up prior to next years general election.
Unsurprisingly the UK housing market was high on the agenda, sitting alongside a broader analysis of the UK’s key economic developments.
16th March 2014 ACS Reshaping Consulting Industry
Bulletin: ACS recognised as one of the new breed of delivery focused consultancies that are reshaping how consulting services are delivered in the City.
“Firms such as Advanced Capability Solutions aim to offer clients the best of both worlds. Their consultants are highly skilled professionals – far more than just ‘bums on seats’ – who are capable of providing work and advice of big-firm-consultant calibre. They also come with the benefits of corporate backing, from a built-in management and accountability structure to continuing skills development. But these hybrid firms are ready and able to provide consultants on a much more flexible basis than traditional firms, whether a client is looking for a single person or a smooth-running, ready-made team. And they come with something else often lacking in consultants and contractors alike: the pride of ownership and boundless drive that come from starting and running a new venture. In many ways, the hybrid firm would seem to be the pyramid-busting, high-quality, talent-on-demand model that so many clients have been asking for…”.
Source For Consulting: March 2014, “The Rise of the Hybrid”
2nd February 2014 Financial Services IT spend set to reach £265billon in 2014.
Bulletin: Report published by Raconteur looks at Financial Services IT and the impact legacy technology systems are having on UK banks.
“Technology underpins financial services and, with IT spends set to reach £265 billion in 2014, there is huge investment underway in this area. With disruptive technology shifting priorities, change management and innovation will be central concepts to company decision-making on where to focus investment. This report highlights key areas that financial services must consider if they are to capitalise on their position in 2014 and beyond, including big data, cybercrime, mobile technology and the cloud.”
31st January 2014 EBA announces key features of the 2014 EU-Wide Stress Test.
Bulletin: The European Banking Authority (EBA) outlines the key features of the 2014 EU-wide Stress Test.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced today the key components of the forthcoming 2014 EU-wide stress test that will be conducted on a wide sample of EU banks. The objective of the EU-wide stress tests is to help supervisors assess the resilience of financial institutions in the European Union to adverse market developments. This exercise aims at ensuring consistency and comparability of the outcomes across all banks based on a common methodology, scenarios and accompanied by a consistent disclosure exercise.
14th January 2014 ACS delivers for US banking client:
Bulletin: ACS delivers a calculation engine for US Final Rules Basel III focussing on the delivery of both Basel II and Basel III Counterparty Credit Risk RWA’s from a US Fed perspective based upon rules issued in July 2013.
Overview of solution delivered:
1st November 2013 ACS announce new product development capability.
Bulletin: ACS Announce a new product development capability and strategy for financial services sector.
Chief Operating Officer Graham Burchell commented: “Our deep subject matter expertise and domain specific technical delivery capability is now being utilised to develop some exciting and innovating financial services products. This allows us to extend our client offering to include a POC and prototype development facility. Our experience in mobile technology is being harnessed to ensure these leading edge banking products can be consumed in both traditional and smart technology formats.”
1st August 2013 ACS Open new office in India.
Bulletin: ACS Announce the opening of a new office in Gurgaon, India.
Chief Operating Officer Graham Burchell commented: “We are opening a further office in Gurgaon, India. The office will allow us to support our onshore clients with additional ODC capacity, as well as allowing ACS to accelerate its demonstration lab facility and expand the scalability of the Delivery Academy”.
31st January 2013 ACS BCBS 239 Principles for Effective Risk Aggregation and Risk Reporting.
Bulletin: Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued their principles for effective risk aggregation and risk reporting. The financial crisis that began in 2007 revealed that many banks, including global systemically important banks (G-SIBs), were unable to aggregate risk exposures and identify concentrations fully, quickly and accurately. This meant that banks’ ability to take risk decisions in a timely fashion was seriously impaired with wide-ranging consequences for the banks themselves and for the stability of the financial system as a whole.
The Basel Committee’s Principles for effective risk data aggregation will strengthen banks’ risk data aggregation capabilities and internal risk reporting practices. Implementation of the principles will strengthen risk management at banks – in particular, G-SIBs – thereby enhancing their ability to cope with stress and crisis situations.
15th January 2013 ACS Launch Delivery Academy, Hyderabad, India.
Bulletin: ACS today announced the launch of their Delivery Academy in Hyderabad, India. Chief Operating Officer Graham Burchell commented:
“This is an important step in the evolution of ACS as a leading technology delivery partner to the financial services industry. This will strengthen our proposition in two key areas. Firstly, from a quality assurance perspective, this will help ensure that our existing and future delivery teams will continue to be at the forefront of industry best practice and leading edge developments. Secondly, it enhances our ability to provide clients with a scalable solution that matches their specific needs for training and delivery of resources in bespoke and emerging technologies. Because we are partnered with Oracle the capability naturally covers OFSAA and OBIEE training but also includes PL/SQL, Testing, Data Architecture and ETL which effectively encompasses the entire development life cycle across Finance, Risk and Treasury.”
1st November 2012 ACS set up OFSAA Risk and Finance Centre of Excellence, India.
Bulletin: ACS announced today that they are setting up an OFSAA Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad, India. Discussions are still on-going as to whether this facility will also be extended to Gurgaon, Delhi. The development is being provided through ACS Pvt. Ltd, the new ACS technology delivery subsidiary in India. Senior Partner, Matt Good commented:
“I am excited to announce that we are accelerating the set-up of our OFSAA centre of expertise in Hyderabad, India. This involves the creation of an OFSAA test-lab for client demonstration and interrogation and encompasses the entire Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) application set. Given the strength of the ACS Business Architecture practice, this will enable us to answer key design questions and specify unknown functional gaps for our client use – this is critical for clients to understand how best they deploy the OFSAA technology. It will also enable us to demonstrate the key dependencies between OFSAA modules and provide an overall view as to how the business and technical architecture can be integrated”.
20th October 2012 ACS set up technology delivery subsidiary in India – ACS Pvt. Ltd.
Bulletin: ACS announced the completion of the set up of their technology delivery subsidiary in India today. ACS Pvt. Ltd has been incorporated to handle all technical development and testing for global financial services clients. Suresh Kumar is the new Managing Director overseeing all operations in India. The subsidiary will also handle all new business development for ACS clients in the Middle East.
15th October 2012 ACS win bid for Risk Proof of Concept at global banking player.
ACS today beat a series of major conculting outfits in a bid to provide an offshore OFSAA proof of concept (POC) for a global bank risk transformation. The POC will take place in Gurgaon, India and will involve the proving of leading edge risk concepts and technology in the Retail Banking space.
22nd August 2012 ACS expand offshore operations in Hyderabad, India
Bulletin: ACS announced today that a new strategic partnership with an Oracle Gold Level certificated partner has effectively expanded the ACS proposition to include offshore operations in Hyderabad, India, Brunei and Dubai. Chief Operating Officer, Graham Burchell commented:
“This is excellent news for ACS. I am delighted to announce that we are now able to offer a comprehensive end-to-end delivery solution across the entire software development lifecycle, with an Oracle Gold Level certificated partner. We are now positioned to effectively extend our programme delivery offering with a full spectrum of technical solution services, namely application development, end-to-end testing and performance optimisation services hosted on our partner’s infrastructure. In addition, we are also able to offer various new infrastructure service solutions including server managed services, network services, application management services and service desk services.”
10th August 2012 ACS assist largest global Oracle transformation in history
Bulletin: ACS announced today that it is actively supporting the largest piece of global transformational change in Oracle history. The OFSAA software solution is being implemented across a global finance, risk and treasury transformation at a leading global investment bank.
10th July 2012 BIS – Progress report on Basel III implementation
At its September 2011 meeting, the Basel Committee agreed to commence a process to review members’ implementation of Basel III. Full, timely and consistent implementation of Basel III will be fundamental to raising the resilience of the global banking system, in maintaining market confidence in regulatory ratios and in providing a level playing field. The review process is intended to provide additional incentives for member jurisdictions to fully implement the standards within the agreed timelines.
This report provides a high-level view of Basel Committee members’ progress in adopting Basel II, Basel 2.5 and Basel III, as of end March 2012. It focuses on the status of domestic rule-making processes to ensure that the Committee’s capital standards are transformed into national law or regulation according to the internationally agreed timeframes. The Committee believes that disclosure will provide additional incentive for members to fully comply with the international agreements. This report updates the Committee’s October 2011 progress report.
13th June 2012 How Basel III will be implemented – CRDIV
Following publication of CRD II and CRD III, the Commission published further consultations on amendments to the CRD, in February & October 2010 (February 2010 consultation and October 2010 consultation). These consultations focused on amendments such as the definition of capital, further counter-cyclical measures, quantitative liquidity standards, counterparty credit risk, systemically important financial institutions, and countercyclical buffers.
Following this consultation, the Commission published its proposed legislation for the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) and the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), which together form the CRD IV package, on 20 July 2011. As well as reflecting the Basel III capital proposals, the CRD IV package also includes new proposals on sanctions for non-compliance with prudential rules, corporate governance and remuneration. These changes are due to be implemented from 1 January 2013 (there will be transitional arrangements for some elements).