Michigan Bank Uses INEA For Compliance Reporting

INEA Corp., Toronto, a provider of enterprise planning, forecasting and reporting software for financial institutions, said that Citizens Banking Corp., Flint, MI, is the first customer to use the INEA platform to support its Sarbanes-Oxley compliance efforts.

While Citizens has used the INEA platform since 2003, the bank recently added new functionality to satisfy SOX reporting requirements in a lock-down environment. The new functionality came in the form of an Excel add-in to streamline the bank's SOX Section 404 reporting.

By providing a set of formula definitions to INEA and using analytical capabilities of the INEA platform, Citizens was able to work with INEA to build a set of templates that allow information to flow through and automate much of the report generation process.

The system is currently used for all SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) external reporting with plans to support regulatory reporting in the future.

"With the SEC cutting back on the days allowed to present reports, INEA helps us get there quicker," said Charlie Christy, Citizens' executive vice president and CFO, in a prepared statement. "We just run the tables and schedules, prepare the analytics, and we're done. Once we have all our tables built, we expect to complete the process in just over two weeks."

Originally, Citizens implemented the INEA platform as the backbone for a dynamic reporting initiative to improve decision-making and drive profitability. It is now being utilized by 285 users, including branch managers, commercial bankers, and operations and support managers in three states. Functions include forecasting, budgeting, actual data, asset/liability, funds transfer pricing, run-off, and standard and ad hoc reporting.