Client: A big five Canadian bank
Facilitated the transition of interbank rates (IBORs) to nearly risk-free rates (RFRs) through the creation of an IBOR transition roadmap with key workstream milestones and indicative program structure. Conducted initial impact assessment of the overall portfolio of products in capital markets and corporate treasury to identify impact on products, portfolios, and business units while establishing product inventory. Executed a coordinated strategy to transition impacted products, processes, and systems, along with internal and external communication plans and key recommendations.

Engagements
With over 30 consultants working in firms across Canada, the US and the UK on LIBOR/BRR projects as developers, BAs, BSAs, testing leads, project managers, and program managers, our team has partnered with enterprise, core streams and business groups including Treasury, Strategic Delivery, Risk, Retail and Wealth Management, Corporate Lending, Capital Markets Front and Back Offices, Technology for systems integrations and development, and Data Governance alongside the Chief Data Officer. We are skilled in impact assessments, project plans, BRDs and FRDs, data mapping, oversight and reporting, and stakeholder management.

Clients: Two international swap dealers and a US swap dealer
End-to-end delivery of a solution to exchange variation and initial margins for non-centrally cleared derivatives. Provide overall program governance and structure in addition to project management, business analysis, and change management across various works streams including market and counterparty risk, collateral, client documentation, legal, compliance, client onboarding and front office across multiple jurisdictions: US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and LATAM.

Engagements
Engaged in FRTB with multiple clients over the past few years, we conducted impact analysis, TOMs (target operating models) design and implementation, and project management and business analysis to develop the Standard Approach and Internal Model Approach. Our focus involved business process mapping and data mapping for the current and future state within market risk departments. We provided subject matter expertise through business and technical market data analysis and quantitative impact studies, and administered rigorous testing, model validation, and risk metrics to guide clients through regulatory deadlines on the new Standardized Approach.

Engagements
Leading several clients in support of their Volcker 2.0 programs, we assisted with decommissioning Volcker risk metrics, covered funds, and compliance and conduct risk. We initiated the change management efforts between IT, business units and compliance, and facilitated consensus from impacted business lines to define changes including project plan and timeline objectives. We also provided support in the execution of changes to clients’ Volcker trading desk, risk metrics, policies and procedures, conduct risk, and systems modifications. We built detailed requirements and documentation, updated procedures and policies, and created the functional requirements for system changes with our team of project managers, business analysts, business system analysts, and developers.

Botsford Associates has provided program management, project management, and business analysis in support of large-scale remediation projects for a major Canadian bank in response to audit findings from FINTRAC and OSFI. The key lines of business supported include Global Sanctions and Canadian Banking. Our team consists of a Program Manager, a Project Manager, and two Business Analysts who have contributed to several projects to remediate audit findings, including electronic funds transfer reporting, large cash transaction reporting, customer risk rating, name screening, and target operating model.

Major FBO - Fed Remediation - Extensive experience with working with clients to re-mediate regulatory exam findings. Successfully designed and implemented a target operating model built on three foundational pillars: Automation, 2nd Level Control, and Data Governance that closed all legacy FRB exam findings within an FBO's Finance department.

For a Big 5 Canadian Bank - Responsible for end-to-end delivery of 8 projects focused on external reporting to FCA, CBI regulators, and EU clients. In summary, delivery included technology built using Kanban methods in an Agile framework; and changes to the front, middle, and back office operating models. Our SMEs, PM/BAs, worked onsite in both Toronto and London.

Major Market Maker was responsible for creating all BRDs and FRDs for Reg YY and Reg W in creating a state-of-the-art dashboard to automate manual quarterly reporting. Responsible for setting up UAT and rolling out the system to business users.

Major International Bank - Led a Business Transformation and Process Re-engineering of the global standards for AML-KYC- Financial Crime Compliance which included policies & procedures, business processes, people & systems. Managed the remediation efforts for all legal entity hierarchies and created the KYC profiles for all the local accounts, including risk rating, KYC, Screening, and refreshing customers based on the new global standard. Drove the analysis and fine-tuning of AML Transaction Monitoring Rules such as Cash, Profiling, High-Risk Geography, Funneling, and Credit Cards to address global and local regulatory requirements. Created Data Integrity Assessment Report for AML monitoring systems and facilitated communications with technology and business lines to understand current state source and target systems environments, process flows, and data structures.

Working with multiple clients on the implementation of Actimize for AML and Trade Surveillance. Additionally we are helping with the implementation of Trading Hub, upgrades and implementation of Nasdaq surveillance systems.

working with multiple global clients on the vendor assessment for E-Comms surveillance solutions. We are also helping to provide complete and accurate requirements for the integration with Behavox for the development of adapters for ingestion of various written e-comms data sources from Email and Message systems and Chat platforms like Office 365, Skype, Bloomberg, WhatsApp; Voice communication sources like RedBox, Cisco, Nice systems

A major Investment bank and financial services company headquartered in NYC has engaged Botsford to help their Swaps Based Dealer migrate from a Standardized Model approach to a Models Based approach. Our SME’s will be providing Business process definition, requirements gathering, and BRD preparation. Developing mock-ups, schematics, flow charts, etc. to solicit user input and feedback. Maintaining data dictionaries and identifying relationships in the data models. UAT coordination, user training, and project management oversight. 3rd party fintech vendor platform evaluation and developing proofs-of-concept. Our resources will work across Front Office, Quantitative Risk and Analytics, Middle Office, Model Validation, Market Risk Infrastructure, and IT. Our team consists of SMEs. This firm has also begun to engage in next-phase discussions with Botsford to help them develop the viability and potential technology roadmap in building a cloud-based risk engine in AWS.

Botsford Associates is supporting a number of investment firms using Acadiasoft for SIMM Calculations, Sensitivity and Models. This was supposed to be a white label vendor to use the SIMM engine to calculate the sensitivities and models. Eventually Jefferies will be looking to build their own models and not use Acadiasoft’s, that will be part of the project.The main challenge we are solving is onboarding Acadiasoft has taken longer and more effort than expected. The data required is a lot more and harder to document, find and send to Acadiasoft. That coupled with the fact that they will want to build their own models has created a large pool of work and the need for additional people. To produce the sensitives for go live - Acadiasoft provided XML formats for each product and for the source systems they execute trades. This person will take the XML documents that Acadiasoft provided, map the data from the source systems to the Data Lake and document the flow of data and the critical data points to input into XML. Data mapping pulls from data lake and then produces XML formats. This person will also need to Test and validate AcadiaSoft's SIMM Models and review the results to ensure they are within the Margin Rules compliance standards. They will be conducting Model Validation on SIMM Models for Commodities and then help support documentation

Our Model Validation team assesses and helps mitigate the risk of models used in the context of valuation, risk measurement, capital adequacy requirements and, more broadly, internal decision-making. The product set covered by our Model Validation team validation includes both cash and derivatives across all asset classes. Our primary responsibilities are to manage the equity model risk across the model lifecycle, including model validation, ongoing performance evaluation, and annual model reviews. We manage the stakeholder interaction with model developers and business owners during the model lifecycle and provide effective challenges to model assumptions, mathematical formulation, and implementation. We are assessing and quantifying the equity model risk arising from model limitations to inform stakeholders of their risk profile and development of compensating controls, balancing theoretical accuracy and pragmatic implementation

Botsford has been engaged with multiple clients on FRTB over the past few years, providing project execution of the impact analysis and target operating model development as well as project management and business analysis on developing both the Standard Approach and the Internal Model Approach. Our teams have focused on business process mapping and data mapping for the current and future state within Market Risk departments. (Example project team: 2 PMs, 6 BAs) Our efforts included providing subject matter expertise through business and technical market data analysis and consistent quantitative impact studies. Our efforts are ensuring rigorous testing, effective model validation, and risk metrics to help guide our clients through regulatory deadlines associated with the new Standardized Approach.

A Major International Bank - Created the first proof of concept for using Predictive Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science methods to analyze trade data for operational risk within the office of the COO of the capital markets division. Received significant recognition from the CAO of the bank enterprise to use similar methods to uncover other opportunities to use AI and ML.

Botsford is engaged in three concurrent T+1 initiatives to deliver front-to-back process reviews for securities expected to be impacted by the T+1 settlement timeline. Our teams are directly responsible for leading & conducting Interviews with key stakeholders (e.g., Allocation/Affirmation, Settlements, Corporate Actions, Fails Management, FX, Securities Lending, etc.).We are tasked to review the current state to help determine and outline the level of manual and automated processing while identifying process and procedural gaps to align with condensed timelines, systems, and technology that create dependencies and inhibit data flow/limits integration between systems. To identify areas with manual processing that increases operational, regulatory, and financial risk in the future state; areas with reliance on third parties or other dependencies that require enhanced planning for resiliency; other critical hurdles and threats that will require mitigation. Through the shared knowledge and diversified teams we’ve built, we're helping to develop a risk-weighted gap assessment focused on impact and prioritization for our clients to incorporate as part of their roadmap to meet the 2024 industry timeline. Our team of subject matter experts (SMEs) will take on the PM and BA functions to deliver on their identified work streams and staff up accordingly to own the UAT deliverables.

For two Major Canadian Banks - Leading project planning, business analysis, strategy development, software configuration, and execution for the implementations of Calypso Collateral Management Module and Colline in support of OTC Derivatives, Repo, and US Securities Lending line of businesses.

Botsford is working with key stakeholders to help modernize our client’s fixed income technology platforms by optimizing vendor platforms (ION) and driving automation through modern DevOps practices (AWS & Terraform for IaC). Our template for this group is now being adopted firm-wide across all lines of business and within their enterprise and cloud engineering groups.

A Major Broker Dealer - Reviewing existing reporting process for all Reg Reporting requirements (including OATS and Blue Sheets, etc.) and establishing requirements for future state Target Operating Model for Reg Reporting as a function to include technology infrastructure, process flows, and controls framework specific to the consolidation and validation of data used in various Reg Reporting regimes including CAT. The project’s end product should provide the client with the requirements to deploy an operating model that improves the transparency and accuracy of all transaction reporting information being communicated to Regulators, reduces reliance on manual processes, and establishes a controls framework that significantly reduces reporting risks. The operating model should ensure that the regulatory reporting teams are optimally staffed to proactively identify and remediate Reporting issues before they are submitted to regulators.

A Global Capital Markets Firm is setting out to expand its structured notes and equity derivatives business, stunted by manual processes and legacy systems. They are committed to modernizing the technology and operating model and have brought Botsford to manage the multi-year, multi-million-dollar business transformation. We are responsible for the Program Management, Project Management, Business Analysis, and functional testing of a multi-vendor implementation. We are leading the current state assessment as well as defining the solution and target operating model by leading requirements analysis; constructing workflow charts and diagrams; studying system & business capabilities; writing specifications, mapping of data, managing budget, resources & timelines; running steering committee and ensuring the deliverables meet business requirements. We have already engaged hundreds of stakeholders across the firm helping the client to navigate these complex technology and business changes.

Major Broker Dealer - Responsible for formulation and implementation of RENTD and RMH methodologies and creation of the policies, procedures, and frameworks for monitoring of the Volcker Compliance by desks in Trading Products. Wrote all BRDs and participated with internal IT teams in creating FRDs. Built testing strategy and performed UAT functions. Continuing to help with ongoing IT implementation.

All MM Europe (IBUK London) products, Fixed Rate Contractual Funding deals, European Callable Deposits, and all MM North America products to Calypso - establishing direct connectivity to Swap Execution Facility.

Major Canadian Bank - Lead project planning, business analysis, strategy development, software configuration, and execution for implementing Calypso Collateral Management Module in support of OTC Derivatives, Repo, and US Securities Lending line of businesses.

Major Market Maker - From a FICC trading perspective - help develop best practices and a standard RACI chart for their trading strategy.

Botsford is leading the post-acquisition effort of the most significant acquisition for our client to date. We are mandated to deliver the migration and enhancement of the firm’s client and trade data across all aspects of their business. Our team is responsible for oversight, program and project management, business and data analysis as well as testing

One of Canada’s largest banks was nearing the end of leases across several global real estate portfolio locations, including NY, Chicago, Toronto, London, Calgary & Hong Kong. The bank seized on the opportunity to engage with Botsford to design an end-to-end transformation program that would significantly shift their employees into a new way of working via optimizing real estate, upgrading technology, and implementing a structure to support the process. Botsford’s experience across real estate, technology, and operations enabled a swift establishment of the full-scope program required to manage such a complex global undertaking across several of the world’s largest financial centers. The program included managing the requirements, design, delivery, resources, and organizational change while executing the build-out of 6 new, state-of-the-art trading floors and 12 collaborative and client-facing banking floors in each of its leading jurisdictions, totaling over 400,000 square feet. The careful transformation design and overall program management were vital to mitigating the risk associated with simultaneously building three new trade floors while running a day-to-day business. Integrating technology, business trends, operational models, and employee needs into the real estate transformation enabled the team to steer the program through the challenges of the pandemic. Botsford’s agile team was able to quickly shift gears, managing redesigns and developing new operating models as Covid introduced even more unique ways of working into the transformation initiative. Our agile team consisted of Program / Project Managers, BAs, and Change Managers in Toronto, NYC, and London.

Botsford Associates led the overall technology integration and testing effort for an acquisition of a Fixed Income Broker Dealer for a Tier One Investment Bank. Our team worked with key stakeholders from both sides to define overall project objectives, scope, and critical measures of success. Designed a governance framework to ensure appropriate levels of management communication and key stakeholder engagement. Created a high-level test plan validating that all systems and activities are captured, and anticipated testing resources are sufficient to meet communicated timelines. Developed a consistent methodology to streamline the work effort specific to creating test cases, test execution, end-to-end documentation, and defect management. Our Team consisted of 1 Program Manager, 2 Project Managers, 1 Test Lead, 3 Business Analysts, and 5 Quality Assurance Analysts. Botsford delivered this project ahead of schedule and under regulatory scrutiny, and it was a significant success for the bank's new leadership.

Botsford has completed the post-acquisition integration of an equities-focused firm in the US. Our focus was on integrating the compliance functions and systems for trade surveillance, control room systems, and CRM.

Botsford Associates provided our client with Data Remediation across all source systems within finance, risk, treasury, and compliance. This 2-year program was approximately 14.5 million per year, impacting Finance, Risk, Treasury, and Compliance. Our Team consists of Business Analysts, Data analysts, Project Managers, and Business System Analysts, focusing on the four main impacted groups: finance, risk, treasury, and AML. Our Team helped conduct Root Cause Analysis on the identified data quality issues, work with the business, operations, and source systems on implementing the fixes for the confirmed issues, track/monitor progress, and close the remediation of those issues.

Working with our Global Banking teams to improve the Data Quality of reports using Power BI and Tableau dashboards across different domains like AML, Trade Surveillance, Capital Markets, Finance, Credit Risk and Auditing. We also helped perform detailed GAP analysis between systems to help identify data inconsistencies that impact the reporting process. We were responsible for building interactive visuals with drill down, slice and dice capabilities for analytics and summarized management dashboards for executive management teams.

Working within capital markets we designed and developed complex data pipeline and integration solutions using Kafka, NiFi, Python, Datastage, and Tableau . We also implemented data profiling and quality checks resulting in a reduction of data errors by 30% . We helped conduct data integrity validation, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and created and maintained data models to support business and analytical needs. We ensured data accuracy and completeness through the implementation of automated data quality checks, resulting in a 95% data accuracy rate

Our client issues billions of dollars in loans per year to it’s customers through a technology and data driven platform. In order to keep their competitive advantage, they are committed to progressing their technology platforms and infrastructure.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Reduced new environment setup time from over a month to under an hour. Reduction of costs by 70%. A clear path to being 100% in Amazon AWS and modernization of their data platform.

TECH USED

Amazon AWS utilizing, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Hadoop, Oracle.

We helped our current client who builds on the technology of OSS DataHub, and provides a developer-friendly modern data catalog to its clients. As a start-up, their infrastructure needs to be cutting edge, adaptable and scalable.

KEY TAKEAWAY

We created a custom platform using Kubernetes allowing for dynamic generation of client tenants in a hosted SaaS Platform. Flexibility was required to adapt the solution to multiple cloud providers.

TECH USED

ArgoCd, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, GKE, EKS, Terraform, VPC, EC2, SQS, Kafka and many more.

Digital Transformation of Fixed Income E-Trading for a global investment Bank.

Botsford is working with key stakeholders to help modernize our clients' fixed income technology platforms by optimizing vendor platforms and driving automation through modern DevOps practices. Our template for this group is now being adopted firm-wide across all lines of business and within their enterprise and cloud engineering groups.

One of our clients who provides streamable educational programs for lawyers. In order to be successful, their service has to be as consistent and on-point as their clientele is, as well as meet the requirements of state and national board certifications.

KEY TAKEAWAY

Eliminated regular service outages and got uptime in the “5 9’s” (99.999%) In addition, we also fully automated the development team’s deployment process to reduce time to market.

TECH USED

Amazon AWS utilizing RDS, SQS, SNS, EC2, VPC, Cloudfront, S3, SSM, Jenkins, CloudFormation, Ansible, AWS CodeDisplay.