Call report preparation automated from 3 weeks to 2 days

Challenge

The bank spent three weeks every quarter manually preparing call reports, tying up four senior analysts. This manual work led to inconsistent results each quarter. A recent regulatory exam flagged four data quality issues in the call reports. The bank had six months to fix these problems before the next exam.

Approach

We redesigned the metric layer for ALCO, credit risk, and call report pipelines, creating precise definitions for all 140 call report line items. We automated data extraction and calculations, cutting preparation time from three weeks to two days. We also implemented a validation step that flagged data quality issues before submission to the regulator.

Outcome

We cut call report prep from three weeks to two days by streamlining data collection and automating calculations. This dropped annual compliance labor costs by $680K. When regulators reviewed the reports, they found no MRAs. We freed up four senior analysts to focus on strategic finance work instead of report assembly.

We Went Through 140 Call Report Line Items to Pinpoint What’s Actually Driving Sales

Alright, here’s the scoop. Our analysts were all over the place with how they defined 12 out of 140 call report line items. No wonder the numbers didn’t line up quarter after quarter, it was a mess. So, we got everyone on the same page by locking in one clear definition for each of those 140 line items. Then, we set up automated calculations to keep things consistent from now on. Boom, problem fixed.

Double-checking our data so we dodge those annoying submission errors

Alright, here’s the scoop. We put together a validation layer that ran 280 automated checks on every finished call report before it got submitted. These checks were pretty sharp, they made sure schedules matched up, caught any big jumps compared to last quarter, and even benchmarked results against other banks in the same peer group. When we tested this on the bank’s last quarter data, it flagged 8 issues that might have triggered MRAs. Caught those early, which saved a lot of headaches down the line.

We told our compliance analysts to tackle the riskiest cases first. Simple as that.

Here’s the deal: four senior analysts were buried, spending three weeks every quarter just cranking out call reports. We switched things up. Instead, we had them tackle this huge 18-month backlog of strategic finance projects. The impact? Their productivity soared, and we unlocked a ton of mental bandwidth. Even the CFO said it was the biggest efficiency jump they’d seen from any initiative.

Results

• $680K Annual compliance labor saved
• 3 wks to 2 days Call report preparation cycle
• 0 MRAs in subsequent exam
• Month 1 New analyst fully productive