Wolters Kluwer Financial Services Acquires Spring Programs Ltd.

Aligning Spring Programs Ltd. with Company’s FRSGlobal Solutions Will Help More UK Financial Organisations Better Meet Intensifying Liquidity and Stress Testing Requirements

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a comprehensive regulatory compliance and risk management business, today announced the acquisition of Spring Programs Ltd. (Spring), an independent provider of financial regulatory reporting solutions in the UK banking market. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is acquiring Spring through its FRSGlobal business, which provides a unified regulatory reporting and risk management solution for financial organisations across the globe.

“The acquisition of Spring will allow us to strengthen that commitment to UK financial services firms, which are facing dramatic changes in how regulation is structured.”

Spring provides full reporting templates and high-level input and delivery mechanisms to UK regulators. The acquisition will enable the combined company to help more financial organisations better meet intensifying liquidity and stress testing requirements in the UK.

“The introduction of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) liquidity regime with mandatory stress testing has begun to change the regulatory reporting landscape dramatically across the UK,” said Steve Husk, CEO of FRSGlobal. “Together with Spring, we can provide the most comprehensive financial risk and reporting solutions for UK financial firms of all sizes.”

With the combination of the FRSGlobal and Spring businesses, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is the number one supplier of regulatory reporting solutions in the UK market.

Spring’s primary product, SPRiNG, was the first software package to be developed specifically for Bank of England reporting in 1987. Five of the six largest UK banking groups use SPRiNG to report to the regulator. Spring also provides solutions that address the financial reporting requirements of the Central Bank of Ireland, the FSA and British Bankers’ Association. Additionally, Spring caters to UK Building Societies.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services provides financial organisations solutions in three main areas: risk management; regulatory intelligence; and transactional and origination management. Through its FRSGlobal solutions, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services helps financial organisations meet financial risk and regulatory reporting requirements. More than 15,000 financial services organisations worldwide trust Wolters Kluwer Financial Services to provide them with solutions to effectively manage operational, compliance and financial risk across their business.

“We are continually looking for ways to help financial services institutions further enhance financial regulatory reporting and make the overall process more efficient,” said Jenkyn Kennedy, director, Spring. “Joining Wolters Kluwer Financial Services’ FRSGlobal business will complement this effort, allowing us to provide Spring customers with an even broader offering of risk management solutions.”

“Wolters Kluwer Financial Services’ main focus is providing financial services organisations across the globe with compliance and risk management solutions to help them understand and comply with changing regulations,” said Brian Longe, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Financial & Compliance Services. “The acquisition of Spring will allow us to strengthen that commitment to UK financial services firms, which are facing dramatic changes in how regulation is structured.”

Spring is headquartered in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Wolters Kluwer Financial Services
Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is a comprehensive regulatory compliance and risk management business that helps financial organisations manage operational, compliance and financial risk and reporting, and improve efficiency and effectiveness across their enterprise. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services supports its global customers with more than 30 offices in 20 countries and is a leading worldwide provider of compliance and risk management solutions for the financial services industry, serving more than 15,000 banking, insurance and securities customers across the globe. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company focused on professionals with annual revenues (2010) of €3.6 billion (£3.1 billion), approximately 19,000 employees worldwide and operations in over 40 countries across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Visit our website, YouTube or follow @WKFinancialEU on Twitter for more information about our market positions, customers, brands, and organisation.

About FRSGlobal
FRSGlobal, which became part of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services in September 2010, is an industry-recognised leader in unified global regulatory reporting and risk management solutions. These solutions, which are enriched with content including pre-defined regulatory reports and stress testing libraries, are employed daily across the globe by firms to meet increasingly complex external (regulatory) and internal (management) reporting obligations.

FRSGlobal solutions are a combination of in-depth content and modules from RegPro and RiskPro, sharing a single DataFoundation and CalculationEngine on a unified platform.

About Spring Programs Ltd.
Spring Programs specialises in regulatory reporting in the UK and Ireland. Its primary product, SPRiNG, was the first software developed specifically for preparing Bank of England returns. It is currently satisfying the needs of the main UK clearing banks and building societies, as well as a large number of financial institutions of varying sizes.