Nedbank Balance Sheet Management Team is responsible for managing the efficient employment of capital across Nedbank Group’s businesses, using risk‐based economic capital allocation, strategic portfolio management and RAPM (primarily driven by EP and ‘manage for value’ principles).
One task assigned to the BSM team is to report on the bank’s competitiveness, using publically available data such as the BA900 reports released by SA Reserve Bank monthly. This report is used by the wider Nedbank Group to analyse their standing relative to other banks in the industry as a whole to help guide internal decisions and policies. Previously, Nedbank BSM generated these reports by hand each month.
As with all regular tasks, manual repetition is not always effective, as human error can be introduced at each manual stage, and repetitive tasks are not very rewarding. Opti-Num Solutions assisted Nedbank with automating the process of gathering publically accessible data, preparing that data and translating it into usable Excel spreadsheets which the wider Nedbank Group can utilise. Using MATLAB’s computational foundation and abilities to interface with other software systems, such as web sites, and Excel, the reporting process was automated, reducing the production time for BSM staff from half a day, to 10 minutes. By automating this manual task, Nedbank staff have more confidence in the reports produced because an identical process is now followed for each report.
In addition to automating the actual report generation task, Opti-Num provided the BSM team with additional tools to help them analyse BA900 data effectively, which enables them to rapidly respond to changes in Group requests for ad-hoc analysis, additions or changes to the monthly reporting. Such agility by the BSM team allows Nedbank to maintain and improve on their market position and deliver value to their customers and shareholders.
Fabian Ntsoane,
Group Funding Strategist at Nedbank Group Limited
