AFTAs 2015: Best Reporting Initiative—Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse has been an innovator since its role in the industrial modernization of Switzerland in the mid-19th century, helping the country develop its currency and funding its electric grid system. Today, the firm’s cutting-edge spirit remains the same, illustrated by the development and deployment of its Client Dashboard platform, responsible for delivering the win in this increasingly competitive category. 

Traditionally, revenue generation and trading volumes were the most important considerations for Credit Suisse when measuring the effectiveness of a client relationship, while profit-and-loss (P&L) was the only metric used to measure the firm’s performance. The bank had a fragmented suite of around 20 applications that delivered management information systems (MIS) capabilities to sales, trading and research teams across the bank, which made regulatory reporting complex and laborious. The solution came in the form of its Client Dashboard, a web-based investment banking, reporting and business-intelligence portal that delivers client MIS, sales and research, trading performance, and regulatory and control services to more than 4,000 users across sales, trading, research and financing functions. The platform is based on a scalable architecture that includes a data lake. Through it, daily trades, reference data, client revenues, and client resource costs are monitored. It also includes credit limits, Value-at-Risk (VaR), P&L and expenses, Bloomberg chat and email, phone logs, as well as brokerage, clearing and exchange (BCE) fees, in addition to numerous other metrics and information. 

Client Dashboard uses customizable widgets in a portal framework catering to various user groups, with the ability to set preferences and create standardized print-friendly reports. It also includes ad-hoc analytics tools that extend reporting capabilities, and slicing-and-dicing features for more experienced users. Most importantly, the Dashboard allows for next-generation predictive analytics and serves as a big-data platform allowing the mining of data and complex correlation analysis.

Client Dashboard has delivered significant efficiencies—reduced costs, automated processes, and enhanced user experiences—by providing a consolidated information delivery channel. Over the last two years, the Dashboard has been positioned as the firm’s client MIS platform, allowing it to decommission six credit processing and reporting applications, with labor and infrastructure savings of some $4 million (64 percent reduction) in infrastructure and $6 million (57 percent reduction) in labor costs.

The solution came in the form of its Client Dashboard, a web-based investment banking, reporting and business-intelligence portal that delivers client MIS, sales and research, trading performance, and regulatory and control services to more than 4,000 users across sales, trading, research and financing functions.