Efficient Finance Function

An efficient alignment of the organisational structure, processes and IT architecture offers strategic opportunities for the finance function.

Financial institutions are confronted with massively increasing internal and external reporting requirements. Efficient management in accounting, risk controlling and reporting is becoming an urgent challenge. The focus is on the integration of financial and risk data and the associated reporting processes, organisational units and IT application landscapes in cross-divisional transformation projects. The heterogeneity of management views, reporting silos and infrastructures should soon be as much a thing of the past as redundant data storage, inconsistent methods or key figures that cannot be transferred. This is resource-intensive for banks, prevents consistent planning, prolongs reporting cycles and, in the worst case, creates the wrong impetus for managerial action.

• Increasing regulatory requirements for the financial function
• Costly and inefficient processes in the finance function
• Inconsistencies between data repositories of various bank management units
• High maintenance costs and risks due to complex system landscapes

KPMG develops integrated, field-tested advisory solutions for banks that cover the entire finance and IT transformation process, as well as end-to-end project management.

• Strategic realignment of the finance function: we look at the actual situation and benchmark comparisons. Setting the vision and strategic objectives of the finance function forms the basis for a joint definition of the Target Operating Model with the departments. After creating a roadmap and a business case, the transformation process can start.
• Process Optimisation: Increasing process quality can significantly increase your institution’s organisational performance and profitability. We advise you on the location, identification of value-adding activities and implementation of optimisation measures by applying a continuous front-to-back/end-to-end view of your processes.
• Finance IT Transformation: KPMG will guide you in defining strategy-compliant, future-ready IT architectures for bank management, IT transformation strategy development and targeted execution. Our services also include software selection and implementation as well as the functional, technical and process-related support of SAP implementation projects (SAP Bank Analyser, SAP BW and SAP FI New GL).
• Optimisation of the financial statement preparation process (incl. Closing Excellence): Structured procedure for shortening the financial statement preparation periods while improving data quality, among other things, using the KPMG Closing Pilots® (tool for efficient financial statement management) and the KPMG Reporting Pilots® (tool for automatic reporting and monitoring of the reporting preparation process).
• Integrated financial and risk reporting: With the introduction of new external reporting requirements such as IFRS 9, FINREP/COREP or CRD IV, banks have recognised the need to combine accounting and reporting data as well as risk and earnings information in a timely manner with the aim of achieving consistent data sets and realising synergies. We offer a structured and pragmatic approach to implementing integrated reporting based on an individually defined target picture. Our services include the determination of the location of the financial and risk reporting, the development of a target finance operating model, the detailed design, the implementation, and the testing and rollout of the integrated financial and risk reporting.
• Post-Merger Integration / Finance Function Carve Out: Timely planning and performance of all activities for the implementation of a joint finance function/separation of the finance function, design of a target operating model for both the new finance function and the separated finance function, integration/separation of internal and external reporting, including the underlying processes, organisational units and IT applications according to the new target structure.
• Sourcing Models: Using our process reference model, we show you sourcing options for the various finance processes, adapt these to your specific requirements and advise you on the implementation of a sourcing solution for your finance processes (e.g. outsourcing, shared services, offshoring).