References

Crescore has a wide range of assignments within Treasury, Risk, Asset Management, and Life Insurance.
Use the opportunity to read more about some typical assignments that are ongoing or where we have delivered in the past years.
In most of our assignments, Crescore assists with several areas of competence. Below groups our references in three main areas: Processes, Systems and Risk Mgmt, Regulations and Compliance.

Processes:
Process improvement
We have extensive experience from business process improvements projects:

A brokerage firm wanted to improve knowledge of the internal processes and internal communication between front and back office in order to reduce the number of errors and unsettled trades. A Crescore consultant managed the project.
A fund company had experienced strong growth but quality problems within their operations made further growth impossible. Our consultant managed the project to improve the quality and to make the daily work more efficient.
A major Swedish asset manager had problems with the process of valuation and price delivery. Our consultant performed a project to identify a new price vendor, to improve the process for price delivery, and to improve control routines. He also quality assured the valuation principles and the process documentation.

Life Insurance Process Redesign and Atomisation
Crescore carried out an analysis of processes and workflows for a large Swedish Life and Pension company to improve the quality of the routines and customer satisfaction and eliminate costs as the result of inefficiency. Crescore was responsible for managing workshops and documenting results. Crescore has developed an action plan with follow-up milestones and was involved in the follow-up process.

Building up and controlling a sales organisation
An employee at Crescore established a sales organisation for a Swedish niche bank. The organisation sold mutual funds and financial assurance products. To control the quality and results of the organisation, a rigorous control process was established. This gave management the opportunity to clearly see the results of sales activities on each individual or group, follow up transactions, and monitor results of targeted segments.

Mutual fund selection and trading service
An online broker wanted to extend its offered services to include trading in mutual funds. Our consultant managed the project including the development of a strategy and a business case for the service, negotiations with fund companies/partners, design of administrative processes, and building the service.

Start up for Internet banking in Switzerland
A Crescore employee was one of the core team members in a start up of an Internet bank in Switzerland with focus on investment products for Nordic investors. The role included product and process design and implementation, application for banking license, and establishing distribution agreements for third party distribution of financial products. The online banking platform had a clear focus on establishing STP processes for all services.

Systems:
Implementation of SimCorp Dimension
Crescore participated in the largest ever implementation of the asset management system Dimension. To integrate their asset management operations, the bank used a common asset management system platform for all the Nordic countries with one common set of static and reference data in one database across all seven installations. Crescore's responsibilities included the following:

Plan and manage the functional set-up on a global basis as well as ensure that local needs were taken into account in the system parameterisation.
Implement all instruments and other functionality in the system.
Build a new central unit for data management to handle all static, reference and pricing data as well as benchmark information.
Manage the conversion.

Implementation of Finance KIT (Treasury)
A large Swedish asset manager wanted to implement STP (Straight Through Processing). To do this, a new asset management system was installed. Crescore consultants were, among others, responsible for all interfaces with other systems and for planning and managing the acceptance tests. Crescore consultants also worked with the conversion and were responsible for extracting/importing data from the old source system to Finance KIT.

Implementation Wall Street (Treasury)
Crescore helped evaluate a treasury department in a major retail bank. The project involved detailed requirement specifications, development of requests for proposals from a selection of system vendors, preparation end execution of client driven user system tests, gap specifications, negotiations, and recommendations of system. The recommended system was Wall Street. Our consultants also participated in the implementation of the system. We helped develop and manage the portfolio structure, configuration of static data as well as analysis, development, and configuration of accounting for fixed income and derivatives instrument from WSS to the G/L of the bank.

Life Insurance System Implementation
A large Nordic Life and Pension company wanted to replace their insurance administration system with a new system that covered scheme maintenance, client and policy servicing, premium collection, investment, claim handling, payments and disbursement, accounting, agent management and commission calculations, and reinsurance. As key business participant Crescore supported the project and participated in the requirement documentation and development phase. Crescore was also responsible for testing the delivered solution, conversion, and independent reconciliation process.

Asset management system upgrade
Crescore assisted a major Swedish asset manager when they upgraded the Dimension system from SimCorp. The project included upgrade planning, testing, project management, and incident management. The upgrade was carried out without any disruptions to the client's daily business.

Integration of the Investment Fund Processes for the Largest Swedish Fund Manager
Crescore acted as project manager for developing adjustments to tCM (Rikare), implementing TMS Dimension (2000) and developed a back office based accounting tool to handle the NAV calculation. This included creation of administrative processes and routines, testing of the portfolio management system, and the integration with fund client directory.

Selection & implementation of a risk management system
A Swedish public pension fund wanted to replace the existing risk system. A consultant from Crescore was responsible for the risk system selection process and the system implementation.

Selection and implementation of a fund module, India
A Crescore employee performed a system selection and implementation of a fund-trading platform for a bank and financial assurance group. The role included RFI, GAP analysis, test case creation and execution, as well as project planning and follow up. The development and pre-acceptance tests were done in India. Crescore has a good understanding of the challenges with outsourcing development to low cost countries and the requirements this places on project documentation and follow up.

Program Manager, a common European platform for Mutual Fund Administration & Distribution
Crescore has the overall program management responsibility for implementing TCM and a modern Web Client for a leading Nordic bank, servicing 3 million clients and 15000 employees. The goal of the cross border program is to copy workflows and products within the group and reduce operational risk and costs for support and maintenance. The program manager role covers Scope-, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resource, Communication, and Risk management.

Implementation of a front to back office Treasury System for a major Nordic bank
To lower operational risks within the treasury operations one of the largest Nordic banks is implementing a common treasury system platform for its operations. Crescore is assigned as project manager and accounting specialist within the project when implementing a front to back office treasury system, including accounting. The project involves responsibility for system configuration, development of inbound and outbound interfaces, conversions from old systems to new systems as well as bank specific developments.

Risk Mgmt, Regulations and Compliance

Operational risk
A leading Swedish asset manager had experienced losses due to operational problems. Crescore was assigned to analyse all cross-functional business processes. Apart from solving the immediate operational problems, the purpose was to increase the organisation's understanding of the internal procedures to minimise operational risk by improving process quality, clarifying the organisation and areas of responsibility, and reducing error frequency.

Basel II, Pillar II: ICAAP development and review
Crescore consultants were involved in the development of an ICAAP (Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process) for a Swedish fund commissioner. Our consultants are also assigned to review the ICAAP when it is completed.

MiFID
One of the leading Nordic Banks needed to comply with the MiFID-regulations. Consultants from Crescore were assigned to manage activities during the feasibility studies and implementation phase. Activities were related to the information to clients, reporting of transactions to competent authorities, the obligation for investment firms to ensure the best execution for their clients, as well as organisational issues such as conflicts handling and increased requirements on compliance and monitoring.

Basel II - Nordic bank
A credit market company, owned by one of the largest Swedish banks who has been approved by the Swedish FSA to use internal models for credit risk, needed help to adopt to the new Basel II regulations. The credit market company will further on apply for use of the internal models for credit risk, as the rest of the group, but will initially report according to the Standardised Approach requiring them to adopt both methods. A Crescore consultant provided the project with regulatory expertise and investigations in Basel II related questions.

Basel II project manager
A Crescore consultant was project manager for the Basel II implementation in one of Sweden's largest banks who had applied for the IRB approach for credit risk and the Advanced Measurement Approach for operational risk. The role as a project manager included coordinating and follow-up to make sure the sub-projects fulfilled their objectives and were compliant with the regulator's requirements. The role also encompassed reporting to the group steering committee. The bank was one of the seven banks that were approved by the Swedish FSA to use internal models for credit risk.

Basel II - Credit market company
A Swedish credit market company needed to comply with the new Basel II regulations. Crescore provided project management for the Basel II implementation and was responsible for the development of an Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP), including risk identification, risk assessment, calculation of Pillar 2 capital requirements, and development of Basel II related policies. The project also encompassed calculation of minimum capital requirements under Pillar 1 using the Standardised Approach for credit risk and the Basic Indicator Approach for operational risk.

Basel II - Swedish bank
A Swedish bank wanted to implement the IRB approach for calculating credit risk according to the EU directive. Crescore provided a project manager with regulatory expertise. The project manager was overall responsible for the application and the review process to the Swedish FSA as well as specific sub-projects and capital adequacy reporting. The bank was one of the seven banks that were approved by the Swedish FSA to use internal models for credit risk.

Solvency II
A Swedish non-life insurer needed assistance answering an impact study (QIS4) of the coming Solvency II framework directive. A Crescore consultant assisted the company completing the task. The consultant participated in work related to evaluation on methods for different calculations, performing calculations and drafting qualitative responses to the Swedish supervisor