Flying start for Young Improven Programme at De Volksbank

Utrecht, 13 April 2018

Since a few months, Improven's new activity Young Improven has started. And the start has been flying. Three of the new young consultants have been contributing to Volksbank's Regulatory Reporting Team since January.

Volksbank is a purely Dutch bank focused on the national market with the well-known banking brands ASN Bank, BLG Wonen, RegioBank and SNS. Volksbank's head office is in Utrecht. Among other things, it houses a central back office, staff and IT organisation that enable the bank to work effectively and efficiently. Regulatory Reporting is part of the Finance Team and is responsible for the mandatory reporting and data delivery towards the prudential regulators DNB and ECB.

Improven was already active at Volksbank with an IFRS9 project and the together with the client saw Young Improven as a good fit for temporary support within its department. The feedback from Volksbank: "I noticed that Improven moved very quickly and in the proposal actually answered the question. Without fuss. Clarifying and fresh. Also, the strength of Young Improven was also convincingly displayed with competitive, realistic pricing."

The Young Improvers work in the teams for the FINREP, COREP and Liquidity reports for the regulator. Within this, they participate in the monthly reporting round and improve the internal processes. To produce good reports, the quality of the data is very important. This data is dispersed and has specific characteristics. The challenge is to receive all the data on time, interpret it correctly and report it completely.

And what then is Young Improven's image in particular?

"As Volksbank is in transition, the Young Improvers are thrown straight into the deep end. They work with people who have been deep in operations for a long time. It's fun but sometimes tough and the pressure is pretty high. You have to be able to deal with that. The Young Improven consultants are flexible and ambitious, they do more than what is asked of them. They are also genuinely surprised, they ask questions and are open-minded. This creates a different and light-hearted atmosphere. In addition, they are able to work ad hoc and project-based."

Lisa, deployed in the COREP (Common Reporting) team, says there are plenty of challenges ahead, including new data flows and the entrance of IFRS9. "I am primarily concerned with data analysis, risk analysis and the delivery of COREP to DNB but, with a slanted eye, I am looking right away at opportunities for process optimisation."

Iben was involved in preparing the FINREP and so-called SE reports, on the basis of which the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) sets monetary policy. The FINREP reports the balance sheet and profit and loss account. This project was recently completed.

Hester works at Liquidity, which - the name gives it away - reports on the liquidity of the Volksbank, taking into account European Regulations. "Our mission is to bring all this data together and translate it into useful and usable reports. I also describe the work processes concisely and concisely and help optimise Excel files through checks. The Volksbank is a wonderful and instructive environment for me."

Want to know what Young Improven can do for your organisation? Then contact Masha Plooij-Hennequin: mobile 06-20604325 or via e-mail m.hennequin@improven.nl.