Newsroom

21.11.2023 - 23.11.2023 / FRANKFURT

Event

Reply at FI-Forum 2023

Reply is represented at the FI Forum in Frankfurt. Meet Reply at their booth and learn all about the range of services for the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. Also visit the presentation "Banking in the Cloud - Future IT Banking Architecture: Our Perspective and Use Cases" on 22 November 2023.

31.10.2023

Event

CLOUD IN FINANCIAL SERVICES - BREAKFAST MEETING SERIES (2/2)

Reply is hosting the final instalment of the two-part breakfast meeting series to present the results of the survey and delve into specific topics covered by the second Cloud in Financial Services Survey with senior financial services executives. 

09.06.2023

Event

Cloud in Financial Services - Breakfast Meeting Series (1/2)

Reply is excited to launch a two-part breakfast meeting series to present the results of the survey and delve into specific topics covered by the survey with senior financial services executives. In collaboration with the European Banking Federation, Insurance Europe, and Profs. Markus Perkmann (Imperial College London) and Nelson Phillips (University of California, Santa Barbara), is currently conducting its second annual survey on Cloud in Financial Services.

26.05.2023

Press Article

A European supervisory revolution? What the proposed SREP changes mean for your bank

If you have ever worked at a bank, you might have come across a process called Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP). A “baby” of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the European debt crisis, this process is an essential element in ensuring that banks remain safe and reliable.

25.05.2023

Event

BREAKFAST BRIEFING CONSUMER DUTY: THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

We believe that the journey towards ensuring good outcomes for customers has only just begun and will have far reaching impact on the way firms are built and run. Join us for the breakfast event, where you will have an opportunity to share ideas across various areas of the Consumer Duty, understand the challenges faced by firms and interact with industry leaders. To register for this event, please RSVP to .

28.04.2023

News & Communication

How the EBA plans to increase personal accountability for compliance failures

The year 2022 has brought a new wave of financial crime enforcement with Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) fines skyrocketing after a lull period during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fines have risen over 50% globally compared to 2021 and show no sign of slowing down in 2023.

20.03.2023

News & Communication

Impact of the new Dora Regulation on Luxembourg based Financial Institutions

The publication of Regulation (EU) 2022/2554 on the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) for financial institutions in the Official Journal of the European Union on December 27, 2022, has significant implications for Luxembourg-based financial entities. Avantage Reply is actively assisting these entities to ensure they are prepared to meet this challenge.

30.01.2023

Press Article

THREE URGENT DEMANDS BANKS MUST MEET FOR EFFECTIVE CLIMATE RISK MANAGEMENT

Perhaps unsurprisingly, climate action failure, extreme weather events and biodiversity loss have been identified as three global risks anticipated to have the most damaging effect over the next ten years according to the World Economic Forum Global Risks Perception Survey 2022.

03.05.2022 / ESG

Event

ESG Breakfast

Avantage Reply will be hosting its first ESG Breakfast at their office on the 3rd of May 2022 (from 8:00 to 10:30am) and we would be grateful if you could join us. This session would be an opportunity to discuss the current ESG challenges and contribute to the conversation, as well as, a chance to ask questions to the experts and network with peers.

26.01.2022 / TechNative

Press Article

5 Key Risk Trends and Implications for Financial Institutions

Brain Momoh, manager at Avantage Reply, writes about some of the key emerging risks facing financial institutions. Read the full article at TechNative.

18.11.2021

Event

Wine Tasting Luxembourg 2021

Reply is hosting a special wine tasting event on the 18th of November 2021, to simply enjoy a delightful evening. The event will take place from 7pm to 10pm at the Hotel Melia Luxembourg (1 Park Dräi Eechelen,1499 Luxembourg). Join us and let’s share some glasses together while being guided by our sommelier.

18.11.2021 / Paris

Event

Wine Tasting Paris 2021

The event will take place from 7pm to 11pm at the Hyatt Paris Madeleine Hotel (24 Boulevard Malesherbes, 75008, Paris). The evening takes place under the splendid glass roof of the Gustave Eiffel workshops. Take a break, join us and as the tasting progresses, let yourself be guided by our sommelier while enjoying an exceptional setting and the know-how of a master chef of France, Chef Sébastien Roux. Please note that the redirection page is in French.

12.11.2021

Blog

Transforming Data Collection – The joint transformation programme

On Wednesday the 13th October 2021, the Bank of England (BoE) and the Financial Conduct (FCA) have announced the launch of the joint transformation programme on Transforming Data Collection, officially kicked off at the beginning of July 2021: this initiative follows the letter published on 23 February 2021 from the two authorities.

10.11.2021 - 12.11.2021 / Hybrid Event

Event

Italian Association of Actuaries – National Meeting

Reply will be a Sponsor at the Italian meeting of Actuaries which will focus on technological innovation and systemic risks.

14.06.2021

News & Communication

AML PACKAGE 2021

The European Commission presented an AML package in July 2019, where it highlighted a number of deficiencies in implementation of the EU anti-money laundering framework, while the recent money laundering scandals led the need to develop a new comprehensive approach at the EU level.

27.05.2021

News & Communication

Avantage Reply UK announce partnership with ElysianNxt

Avantage Reply UK and ElysianNxt are pleased to announce that we have entered into a strategic partnership, bringing together Reply’s management and risk consulting expertise with ElysianNxt’s cutting edge risk technology.

23.04.2021

Blog

From Operational Resilience
to Operational Excellence

At Reply, we support, guide and advise our clients in their Operational Resilience to Operational Excellence journey through our deep industry experience, leading strategic partnerships and proven framework.

09.04.2021

News & Communication

The EBA will make its Basel III Monitoring Exercise Mandatory

The European Banking Authority (EBA) published on 16th of March 2021 a decision, which changes the Basel III monitoring exercise from its current voluntary nature to a mandatory exercise from December 2021.

03.03.2021 / Le Soir Belgium

Press Article

An ecological opportunity for European banks : towards the introduction of "green" home loans

Banks, like all economic players, are called upon to contribute to the climate effort and the implementation of concrete actions in response to the Paris agreements limiting the increase in the planet's temperature to 1.5°C.

22.02.2021 / UK Finance

Press Article

Improving financial services regulators’ cost-benefit analyses

Find out how Avantage Reply worked with UK Finance to recommend improvements to financial services regulators’ cost-benefit analyses. Learn how the team's research, supplemented by discussions with the industry, led to the making of 7 key recommendations in the resulting policy paper.

20.11.2020 / LIBOR

Press Article

Äddi LIBOR, Moien Alternative Reference Rates

London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is the world’s most widely used benchmark for short-term interest rates. It is a reference rate for some $200 to $350 trillion in mortgages, consumer loans, derivatives and other financial instruments, which elevates it to the status of a gauge for the health of the banking system. As of the end-2021, it will cease to exist. This development is both a challenge and an opportunity for the financial industry.

16.11.2020

Event

PRMIA Risk Leader Summit 2020

Avantage Reply are proud to announce their involvement as Gold Sponsors of the PRMIA Risk Leader Summit 2020. The virtual event, held over two half-day sessions on 16 - 17 November 2020, offers an exploratory risk leadership experience looking at the new dynamics governing the risk profession.

20.10.2020 / Regulatory Reporting

Press Article

Integrated reporting system – The end of the regulatory burden?

In recent years, financial institutions have faced a significant increase in the volume and complexity of regulatory reporting requirements imposed by the supervisory authorities. In this context, institutions are required to submit hundreds of thousands of data points in different templates and formats to various supervisors (European Authorities, national authorities, or both). It is worth noting that the reporting deadlines and frequencies at which data points must be reported to the relevant supervisory authorities vary greatly across national jurisdictions.

12.10.2020

Blog

The Data Religion: Dataism in Financial Services

In my latest blog I reflect on Yuval Noah Harari's celebrated book, Homo Deus, delving into Harari’s fresh angle on the role of data in our day-to-day life. As I was contemplating Harari's spellbinding book it occurred to me that Dataism is, to a large extent, already the religion of the financial services industry.

07.10.2020 / ESG

News & Communication

Survey on Credit Institution's Disclosure of Information Related to ESG Risks

After the European Taxonomy and the non-financial reporting directive (NFRD), the EBA is moving a step forward in its action plan on sustainable finance. Until the 16th of October, the market participants can answer a survey to develop draft implementing technical standards (ITS) on Pillar 3 disclosure of prudential information on ESG risks.

01.10.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days – The Sixth Leg of the Journey: Cloud Regulation

This is Part 6 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

29.09.2020 / Core Banking

Press Article

“Back to basics” to enhance core banking processes

“School is back in session!” and as pupils go back to study their core subjects, the bankers will have to do their own studying of the 2020 EBA Guidelines on Loan Origination and Monitoring. These guidelines bring a number of far-reaching requirements to the age-old process of credit granting.

21.09.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days – The Fifth Leg of the Journey: Cloud Security

This is Part 5 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

14.09.2020

News & Communication

The EBA advises the EU Commission to be pragmatic when it concerns AML/CFT in Financial industry

Since 2019, EBA has legal duty to lead, coordinate and monitor EU AML/CFT efforts of all EU financial institutions and competent authorities . The EBA making full use of its powers, continues to lead the development of EU AML/CFT policy and support its effective implementation to foster an effective, risk-based approach to AML/CFT.

11.09.2020 / Taxonomy

News & Communication

Delegated acts under the taxonomy regulation

The EU Taxonomy Regulation – the establishment of an EU classification system for sustainable activities - was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on the 22 June 2020 and entered into force on 12 July 2020. As a reminder, is a tool to help investors, companies, issuers and project promoters navigate the transition to a low-carbon, resilient and resource-efficient economy.

03.09.2020 / IFRS 9

Press Article

IFRS 9 is entering the 2021 EBA benchmarking exercise

The benchmarking exercise is a key supervisory tool to monitor and enhance the quality of the internal models. The EBA 2021 benchmark exercise is aiming to take on a new hurdle by demystifying market approaches implemented to calculate expected credit loss under the IFRS 9 requirements.

13.07.2020 / Outsourcing

Press Article

Outsourcing under the spotlight of the pandemic crisis

Since the latest EBA guidelines were published in 2019, financial institutions have rushed to implement measures to make sure they are in full control of outsourced activities. But COVID-19 put the spotlight on weaknesses of traditional outsourcing, opening doors to more resilient cloud-based solutions.

29.06.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The Third Leg of the Journey: Architecture

This is Part 3 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

11.06.2020 / Cloud computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The Second Leg of the Journey: Infrastructure

This is part two of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

05.06.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The First Leg of the Journey

Jules Verne authored the novel Around the World in Eighty Days, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours in its native French, which was published serially in 1872. It would presumptuous of me to rescript the story of the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s trip around the world, but allow me to take you on a ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

28.05.2020 / Consultancy.uk

Press Article

Strategic challenges of cloud adoption in financial services

While the move to the cloud was already well underway in financial services, the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for virtual organising, and specifically slipstream cloud-based working. But while moving to the cloud can unlock significant benefits, it also comes with several challenges.

28.05.2020 / Fintech Magazine

Blog

Technology Enablement across the Wealth Management Value Chain: The Mass Affluent Opportunity

Market conditions are forcing financial institutions to find new models for growth. One of the largest identified gaps for growth is the underserved and overlooked mass affluent segment.

FEATURED IN FINTECH MAGAZINE

26.05.2020 / ITALIAN LANGUAGE WEBINAR

Event

COVID-19: regulatory action and impacts on the credit lifecycle

FROM 4.00 TO 5.00 P.M. CEST

The COVID-19 emergency and the actions taken by Italian and European Authorities to support the economy have significant impacts on the banking system on both operational and profitability point of view.

JOIN US!

14.05.2020 / ESG Rating

Blog

Blind Reliance on ESG Data and Rankings — The Seeds of the next Mis-selling Crisis?

In early 2019, a survey of financial advisers had already revealed serious misgivings over the possible mis-selling of products marketed to investors as ‘ESG friendly’. 97 of every 100 financial advisors in the United Kingdom (UK) had declared themselves as either “very” or “fairly” concerned about the potential for allegations of mis-selling ESG investments, according to market research firm Cicero.

07.05.2020

Blog

The Cloud and the future of finance

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of co-authoring a short article on the adoption of the Cloud in Financial Services with Professor Nelson Phillips of the Imperial College Business School. We conducted several interviews with senior leaders in financial services about their experiences of moving to the Cloud. It turned out to be such a captivating journey that Nelson and I are planning to continue along this path and turn it into a much more comprehensive piece of research.

16.04.2020 / Coronavirus

Blog

Never waste a good crisis: the strategic challenges of rapid cloud adoption in financial services

One dramatic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been the rapid acceleration in the digital transformation of organisations as much of the workforce has been suddenly forced to “WFH”. The ability of organisations to close physical offices and continue operating rests largely on various kinds of cloud services providing distributed, on-demand availability of data storage and computing.

16.04.2020 / LUXEMBOURG

News & Communication

Brexit for Luxembourg

Due to Brexit, financial institutions have been forced to reorganize and relocate their operations, leading to an overall increase in costs. These are caused by increased liquidity costs, more complex legal entity structures and regulatory reporting portfolios, especially in the banking sector. However, a handful of European cities have benefited from those implications.

15.04.2020 / English Language Webinar

Event

Regulatory Reporting: Meeting Supervisory Expectations

FROM 5.00 TO 6.00 P.M. CET

Join Avantage Reply for an interactive session to discuss a few handy tips from their Practical Guide on Regulatory Reporting released in March 2020, and to hear key insights from the industry experts in Europe and the UK on Regulatory Reporting.

JOIN US!

07.04.2020 / English Language Webinar

Event

Luxembourg outlook on Outsourcing: A Panel discussion

Join Avantage Reply and e*finance consulting Reply for a presentation and insightful discussion with our expert guest speakers focusing on regulatory practices on outsourcing in Luxembourg.

JOIN US!

30.03.2020 / Remote Working

Blog

How to maintain business productivity with hundreds of employees working from home

With Covid-19 wreaking havoc on business and the economy, the only ideal solution is to respect Government guidelines while continuing business as usual — from home. The problem is, how can an organisation, in particular a financial institution, give hundreds or thousands of employees secure access to the documents and applications required to work from home without disruption to service?

27.03.2020 / Homeworking

News & Communication

Homeworking: Managing today and preparing tomorrow

Today, a worldwide virus forced homeworking in our lives. But at Reply we strongly believed in homeworking’s multiple benefits long before this virus changed our lives and habits. We analyzed numerous combinations, turned them into models, identified how to implement it smoothly and developed a strong methodology supported by a network of highly skilled experts to roll it out fast and efficiently.

20.03.2020

Blog

IT & DevOps in Financial Services (The Phoenix Project)

If, like me, you have to interact with IT —and technology is vital for you or your clients — this excellent novel will enlighten your day-to-day work. The Phoenix Project was first published in 2013 and, in the fast-moving world of technology, one could view this book as ‘outdated.’ But no. The way it articulates the value of DevOps for organisations remains insightful. It remains useful. And it remains worth your attention. Of particular value is the presentation of the Three Ways — the principles from which all observed DevOps behaviours are derived.

19.03.2020

News & Communication

Worried about Regulatory Reporting? We have the solution

Mounting regulatory requirements and scrutiny have caused banks to worry about their regulatory reporting requirements. Avantage Reply has extensive knowledge and expertise on dealing with different regulatory reporting issues.

16.03.2020

Blog

It's all anyone is talking about...

It’s all anyone is talking about and, whilst I really wanted to write about something lighter, I was dragged back to the Reply Risk & Regulatory Academy, which has had the honour to run courses in Cambridge for many years. This led me to an incredible report published by the University there...

12.03.2020 / LUXEMBOURG

Event

Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC)

Sometimes, the hardest question a supervisor can ask of a firm is: Are you in control? Many firms are increasingly making use of Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) technology to answer this question, both to show that they are indeed, in control, and that they are taking active steps to improve the quality of the risk management process.

05.03.2020 / BRUSSELS

Event

Lessons learned from an IFRS17 project

Now that the development phase of IFRS 17 projects is almost over, it is time to look back and learn from our experience. Avantage Reply has the pleasure to invite you to a breakfast of reflexion, take stock of where the other players stand and share your experiences to avoid common pitfalls.

02.03.2020

Blog

Victor Hugo & the Green Swan: An Introduction to the threat of Climate Change on Financial Stability

There is something peculiar in the book released last January by the Bank for International Settlement and Banque de France, The Green Swan. The book builds on the concept of ‘black swans’ first introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in 2007, but this time the swan is green. Green swans (or climate black swans), the authors argue, are extreme financially disruptive events resulting from climate-related risks.

26.02.2020

News & Communication

“The ECB is coming”: Let’s have compliant data for regulatory reporting!

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, which had shown that the capacity of banks to manage risks during "stress" periods was insufficient, the Basel Committee took the initiative to publish the BCBS 239 standard.

21.02.2020

Blog

The Laundromat Movie: Meryl Streep discusses Anti Money Laundering & Counter-Terrorism Financing

Few realise just how corrosive the effects of Money laundering and the financing of terrorism are on society. That’s why, when we have the opportunity to assist our clients with their Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) initiatives, I find it exciting and rewarding.

14.02.2020

Blog

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: Applicability to Financial Services

I had just finished reading Chad Orzel’s bestselling book ‘How to teach quantum physics to your dog’ last week when my colleagues presented what is perhaps one of the first concrete applications of ‘quantum-inspired’ computing in European banking. Before I turn to that, allow me to share a few words on Orzel’s book and how it got me to think about quantum computing in financial services…

07.02.2020

Blog

ECB SREP 2019 - Key Challenges for Eurozone Banks

On 28 January 2020, the European Central Bank (“ECB”) held a press conference in Frankfurt on the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process 2019 (“SREP 2019”). It highlighted a number of interesting developments in the Eurozone. Allow me to share with you my key take-aways regarding the first three based on his remarks and the Question and Answer session that ensued.

05.02.2020

Blog

The difficult child of regulatory reporting

In this period of annual closing and maximum effort for all reporting teams, you will probably agree that there is one that is particularly daunting. I am of course talking about the Pillar 3 disclosures.