Axis Bank Ltd.
Contact: Varnika Mishra
Country: India
Award Category: Innovative Problem Solver
Tell us about the business problem you were trying to solve.
Background - RBI in its letter dated January 31, 2024, directed all the banks to streamline the internal compliance monitoring function, by leveraging the use of technology and to integrate all the manual processes into a single system. The regulator felt that there is a need to implement comprehensive, integrated, enterprise-wide and workflow-based solutions/ tools to enhance the effectiveness of this function
The Compliance team want to have framework for Management Self-Certification of penalties (MSCS). As first line of defence, business / product or process owner has reviewed all activities performed by unit and confirm that all statutes has been adhere by them. The expectation is to automate the manual process of collation through an appropriate workflow.
Challenge - There are some issues that are self-identified by respective departments however same are not recorded on system. Same are circulated through email confirmation to control teams on quarterly intervals basis compliance mail initiation.
This activity was supposed to be complete manual and recurring either monthly / quarterly.
Business used to coordinate to such departments with actionable to users to report the self identified issues, penalties and statutes in their predefined word template.
Frequency of this manual followup was as
Self-certification for issues - Quarterly with reporting units
Self-certification for statutes - Quarterly with reporting units
Self-certification for penalty - Monthly with ~42 departments as is
1. Cpl Ops sends an email on the 25th or 26th of every month to 42 departments of the bank, for seeking the details of the Penalty/ strictures/ show cause notices/warnings/advisories etc. levied / passed by various regulators/ administrative agencies to them, giving them a timeline of 3rd or 4th of the subsequent month.
2. The departments share the details through mail in the excel format along with the supporting documents, the supporting documents can be either in the form of mails, PDF letters or excel files.
3. The data is segregated into penalty, advisories, warnings, SCN etc. regulator wise and collate as received from the departments, in our given format, for further reporting to RBI SSM and other internal departments like Risk, TPP, F&A etc.
4. Every month this data is collated in a single repository for future reference and for SSM reporting or as an when required by any other department and periodic reporting like disclosure and quarterly and annual Tranche reporting
What SAS products did you use and how did you use them?
Tools used - SAS GCM 9.4, SAS EG, SAS DI, SAS SMC, workflow studio.
1- Created New module as ‘Management Self Identification of Issues (MSII)” to report Self-certified issue by CARO in SAS GCM. Same module for Penalties and Statutes.
2- Created New Calendar for self-certification of issues, statutes & Penalties. Named calendar as “Management Self certification Calendar. Creation and auto trigger of Self certification for issues basis defined in calendar.
3- Developed code such that each unit defined in the self-certification calendar should get auto trigger basis defined frequency for each drop-down value respectively (Issue/Statute/Penalties)
4- Added field validation, warning message , informatory message and access controls to Compliance officers and Spoc.
5- Written code and Added rules for Auto trigger of Self identified issues/penalties/ statutes basis the category selection .
6- Created code for Auto generated emails basis the product / department selection and self certification owner for reminders/ escalation as per the Buisness use case.
7- Found workaround to allow to create multiple issue in single self-certification pertains to his/her assessment unit.
8- Created workflow using workflow studio and given maker checker
9- Developed code to build rules in Visual Analytics and SAS EG for self certification Reports with various filters and break ups in drill down manner
10- Created customized Dashboard for Compliance team in a downloadable format .
What were the results or outcomes?
1- Single Repository of self identified issues , penalties and stautes are also now getting maintained in the system
2- Compliance process for reporting self identified items is 100 % Automated
3- Saved effort of manual email followups of Compliance team with every department from ~1 hour to seconds daily.
4- Response time of data entry from departments of bank is reduced from days to minutes.
5- Module is developed in [predefined template form so User are well versed with the processes and adapted in no time.
6- VA reports developed has made easy reporting to regulators /auditors and senior stake holders.
7- Risk of incorrect data sharing will be eliminated, since self certification Calendar auto trigger inherits the parent issue details.
8- Bank Is RBI complaint
9- Audit trail , Attachments , pdf are now stored and can be referred during audits at any point of time.
10- Maker checker has given a feasibility to users to either reject or approve with comments.
11- . Clear, consistent, and efficient process for obtaining, verifying, and submitting Statutory certifications required on a quarterly basis
12- Report are user friendly and transparent to nth level.
13- Reduced dependencies on Old employees for historical data.
Why is this approach innovative?
1- we have customized SAS code 100 % to accomodate our requirement.
2- Since SAS tools is already procured by Bank and we have SAS skilled resources , we have developed this module from scratch, Inhouse.
3- Challenge was limited to Single repository and Automation. But we have not only automated the data entry , but also given add on features like maker checker , audit trails, attachment , email triggers , reminders, alerts , Calendar selection based Autotriggers etc
4- This Challenge was limited to Compliance team only , but we have developed the module in a way that same effort will work for other control functions like Operational risk , IFC fRR risk also. So , as a IT Support team , we have made our lives easy.
5- This whole workaround has been appreciated by Business since this has
a- reduced response time from 24 Hours to minutes.
b- Manual intervention reduced to Zero.
c- Emails follow up time and effort reduced to Zero
d- Cost for development - Zero
