Financial Services

Financial services companies have come under a barrage of regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US, Canadian Bill 198, and Turnbull in the UK. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is only one in a long series of government rules that have a direct impact on the IT and governance decisions made in financial services companies.

Over the last several decades, companies managed their financial, quality, health & safety, environmental, and other compliance requirements through traditional hard copy mean or via a collection of disparate systems (point solutions). Even with the deployment of globalized ERP solutions, the specific compliance areas are still often managed in silos, divided along organizational or domain lines. In addition, the management of risk and corporate governance within organizations has often been managed separately from the traditional compliance areas.

Due to several market and regulatory factors, most companies will have to develop strategies and systems to accomplish more efficient compliance management throughout the enterprise to maintain profitability and market share while reducing risk. Technology innovation and a merging of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) regulatory philosophies now allow companies to achieve business improvement through the integration of all their GRC requirements throughout the enterprise.

To enhance their competitive advantage in this changing environment, one of the strategies financial services companies are increasingly embracing is the use of new technologies, such as Xybion’s software solutions, to streamline internal processes and deliver maximum value to their clients. At present, most companies manage their internal controls documentation and evaluations (audits, testing, design effectiveness evaluations) in an ad-hoc, highly manual manner, using spreadsheets, documents, legacy software, or a combination. Progressive companies realize that these methods are no longer acceptable in today’s highly competitive market.