2015 was a busy and exciting year for BankSearch; we continued our drive to remain at the forefront of software development for data collection, analysis and presentation solutions, by conducting extensive research and development throughout the year, whilst bringing to fruition a number of important projects.
New Projects
We were delighted to start the year with a new and exciting project to deploy our Straight-Through Processing System at the Central Bank of Barbados. Our software quickly went live, with all Barbadian Commercial Banks, Trusts, Finance, Merchant and International Banks trained and utilising it within the first six months, resulting in significant efficiency gains for all parties.
We are also thrilled that our Data Capture System was selected by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to assist in their goal of gathering relevant data so that they may analyse and compare it to predict future trends and ultimately, to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
Throughout the year BankSearch also continued to build on our existing relationships with clients and to develop new ones. We were privileged to be invited to join Lord Livingston’s Technology Trade Delegation to Turkey in February and enjoyed presenting our services to interested parties in both Istanbul and Ankara. We look forward to continuing to work with all of our valued clients in 2016.
Product and Service Development
Every year we aim to improve our products and services. Here are just some of the exciting developments that took place in 2015:
- Straight-through process from data collection and validation to outputting aggregated information reducing manual interventions and improving the timeliness and accuracy of the gathered information.
- Services are now available on the Cloud – they are used and enjoyed by our clients around the world.
- New interactive, parameter driven Report Generator outputs cross-sectional and time series reports on-the-fly. They can also be downloaded in Excel.
- Enhanced two-tier approval process; user submitted data is approved by a named person from within the submitting institution. The data is then reviewed and approved by the System Owner’s approver.
- Data that has not been approved by both approvers is held in the database as “Provisional”.
- We have exciting plans for 2016 which will improve our systems still further…watch this space!
Business Start-up Data Service
Our Business Start-up Data Service continues to be a success with over 40% of Local Enterprise Partnerships subscribing. They enjoy accurate, timely data about company formations within days of it being published – not months. The data also:
- Provides unique coverage of mainstream business start-ups
- Includes sole traders and non-VAT registered firms
- Supports monitoring company formations by industry sector, legal status and geography, including output area classification, urban/rural and deprived/non-deprived areas
- Provides geographical breakdown for Local Authorities. The data is available by LEP, County, District and Ward level.
- Measures business birth rates by geography in a consistent and comparable way
- Contains contact details of new businesses, their address and the names of directors
Charitable Giving
Every year, during the festive season, BankSearch takes time to give thanks for the loyalty and backing of our customers and friends, which means a lot to us.
Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky and in this last year alone over 83,000 young people in the UK experienced homelessness. That is why, BankSearch made a donation to Centrepoint, so that we can help give homeless young people a future.
We hope that your Christmas and New Year were filled with good health, peace and happiness and we look forward to working with you in 2016 and beyond.
All the best from the team at BankSearch.