About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

AxiomSL Offers Support for BCBS 239 Compliance

Subscribe to our newsletter

AxiomSL, a provider of regulatory reporting and risk management solutions, has combined functionality of its ControllerView platform to support clients that must comply with the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s regulation 239: Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting.

BCBS 239 includes a series of 14 principles providing guidance on how banks should manage and govern data. The principles are grouped into four areas covering governance and infrastructure, risk data aggregation, risk reporting and supervisory review, and are aimed to improve the ability of banks to identify and manage risk. While the outcome is laudable, achieving compliance is difficult as it requires the integration of finance and risk data to provide one version of validated and complete data that can be used many times in different systems.

Tony Sarkis, director, account management EMEA at AxiomSL, explains: “The principles of BCBS 239 must be applied to both risk and finance data. Traditionally, banks have good control of finance data, but risk data is more fluid and is used in many systems and controlled and owned by many users. BCBS 239 forces the integration of data and requires one version of trade data that can be used many times.”

Sarkis describes the lack of data clarity that can be caused, for example, by a trader updating the price of a trade that is already in a trading system. This can lead to the same trade having different timestamps and valuations in different systems. Sarkis says: “The governance principles of BCBS 239 are designed to avoid this. They talk about versioning, accurate reconciliation, availability of data and completeness.”

The principles covering risk aggregation and reporting include issues of unified naming conventions, the quality of risk data and responsibility for, and ownership of, data, the latter bringing accountability to the forefront of data management.

Considering all the governance and risk principles, Sarkis says: “Banks must ensure their policies, procedures and data governance adhere to the principles. They must ensure data is controlled, owned, frequent and accurate. While these are objective requirements, how they reach them is subjective.”

AxiomSL has championed the data control and governance concepts enshrined in the principles of BCBS 239 for some time and includes them in its ControllerView platform for regulatory reporting and financial control, making it able to support firms that must comply with the regulatory principles. Sarkis explains: “The AxiomSL solution standardises and stores data from sources such as trade, settlement, risk management, legal and finance systems. It then validates, reconciles and controls the data until it matches the ledger and is complete. The data can then be used by other systems, perhaps for regulatory reporting, stress testing or capital requirements, or for internal monitoring and management.”

As banks identified by the Financial Stability Board as global systemically important prepare for the January 2016 introduction of BCBS 239, Sarkis suggests that BCBS 239 best practice can best be achieved using third-party services such as ControllerView that are constantly updated as regulations change and provide a more cost-effective proposition than internal solutions.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: An Agile Approach to Investment Management Platforms for Private Markets and the Total Portfolio View

Data and operations professionals at private market institutions face significant data and analytical challenges managing private assets data. With investors clamouring for advice and analysis of private markets in their search for returns, investment managers are looking at ways to gain a more meaningful view of risk and performance across all asset types held by...

BLOG

The Data Year Ahead: More Data Formats and Use Cases

In the second part of our preview of the next 12 months in data management, we take in the views of experts who offered Data Management Insight their thoughts on a range of developments, including the increased use of unstructured data, the wider application of data sets and distribution challenges. 1 Data Governance, Quality and Technologies Ian...

EVENT

AI in Capital Markets Summit New York

The AI in Capital Markets Summit will explore current and emerging trends in AI, the potential of Generative AI and LLMs and how AI can be applied for efficiencies and business value across a number of use cases, in the front and back office of financial institutions. The agenda will explore the risks and challenges of adopting AI and the foundational technologies and data management capabilities that underpin successful deployment.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...