London, UK – May 2021 – The Buckinghamshire Building Society is the latest financial services organisation to standardise on Whistlebrook’s suite of back office finance applications to complement their core banking systems.

This has further strengthened the existing long-term strategic partnership between Whistlebrook and the Society. The Buckinghamshire’s extended use of Whistlebrook’s finance software products will support the Society’s future strategic growth aspirations and desire for full automation of regulatory & financial reporting.

The Society was been a Whistlebrook customer since 2006, initially for Whistlebrook’s widely used Financial Ledgers product (WBF®). The relationship has deepened over time with the Society opting to deploy WTMS® (Treasury Management), WHA® (Hedge Accounting) and WIRES® Plus (Automated Regulatory Reporting) in 2017.

In July 2020, identifying the need for increased efficiency in the monthly cycle for the production of management information and corporate plans, Darrin Ramdeen (Buckinghamshire Building Society Finance Director) selected the ALFI BI® (Business Intelligence), WFP® (Financial Planning) and WBEIR® (Effective Interest Rates Calculation) products, further extending the partnership.

The ALFI BI® and WFP® projects were both deployed rapidly, in conjunction with Whistlebrook’s implementation partner Portobello Consulting, and both went from the initial project planning meeting to go-live over an intense implementation period of 6 weeks. The WBEIR® product went live from May 1^st following a series of parallel testing after the commencement of the Society’s new financial year. Even under normal conditions, it is a significant accomplishment to have achieved so much in such a short period of time, but to do this during a pandemic, which required fully remote deployment, is a testament to all those involved in the project.

The Society has now been using WFP® and ALFI BI® for several months. Darrin Ramdeen said that “Through the comprehensive functionality and the integrated Whistlebrook data warehouse, the WFP® software has significantly reduced the Society’s planning cycle and enabled the production of the corporate plan, recovery plan and stress tested ICAAP with greater efficiency, insight and control than was possible from our legacy solutions.”

David Webber (Whistlebrook CEO) said “We are extremely pleased to have deepened our relationship with the Buckinghamshire Building Society and are delighted that the functionality they are now taking full advantage of has surpassed their high expectations and is delivering such significant benefits to the society”

The financial services market place is ever changing and it is only with close collaborations, such as with Buckinghamshire Building Society, that an independent software vendor and its customers can ensure that they have the solutions in place to meet existing challenges and challenges yet to emerge.

The Society worked closely with Whistlebrook in developing the hedge accounting product WHA and collaboration on future product development is ongoing as we jointly look at tackling business challenges such as the automating of provision calculations and ALCO reporting.

Both organisations believe that the increasing demands on financial institutions to both fulfil regulatory and other reporting requirements, as well as delivering business insight are already driving change in how risk, finance, treasury and operational departments work together.

Organisations are being required to report with ever growing frequency and with ever-deepening granularity and it is no longer practical to have systems in operational silos, which are producing outputs that are based upon dissimilar data sets.

To that end, the society has now commenced a project to deploy WALM® (Asset and Liability Management). Whistlebrook’s WALM® solution provides a comprehensive suite of reports, the PRAs six recommended stress tests and the opportunity to streamline the ALCO pack generation process through automation using Whistlebrook’s Single Trusted Source of Truth® data warehouse. This will all further enhance the efficiency, reliability and insight gained from this monthly reporting process and ensure that the business is under continuous oversight and control.