Who Was the Client?
A leading global private bank with a presence in the Channel Islands.

Client Requirements
The OECD Common Reporting Scheme (CRS) requires financial institutions, including ours, to share certain information about their clients to tax bodies within their jurisdiction. The reporting obligations include account types and taxpayers covered, as well as common due diligence procedures.

The client had a need for a suitable project manager to manage a business-critical project that delivers the bank’s CRS reporting in compliance with the relevant local CRS laws. A background managing regulatory projects and an ability to quickly understand the business and regulatory requirements was essential.

In addition, the project manager was required to more broadly manage other regulatory and tax-related matters over a six-month period.

What Did the Project Involve?
The CRS project involved management from the definition stage through to closure. The first stage required the C5 Alliance project manager to build the requirements. This in turn required a thorough understanding of the key legislative documents and active engagement with tax and other internal specialists.

Each milestone was met throughout the project, supported by project governance and steering committee meetings utilised by the project manager to keep the project sponsor and stakeholders briefed.

Once a data solution was built to the requirements, the project manager took control of building and implementing the testing strategy and converting the data from Excel to XML in readiness for submission.

Length of Project
At just over six months, the project was short and focussed in order to meet the OECD reporting scheme requirements in good time for regulatory deadlines.

Project Success
The C5 Alliance project manager effectively managed the CRS reporting requirements for the client and ensured the reporting was delivered in time to meet the regulatory deadline. Furthermore, other tax-related matters that required project management supervision were also successfully delivered to meet internal and regulatory deadlines.

The project manager ensured that in project handover and closure activities, the business would be better prepared to meet future years’ reporting by initiating process improvement activities and ensuring stakeholders were briefed on lessons learned.