LONDON, June 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Business and IT consultancy increases year-on-year revenues by 23%, opens new development centres in Poland and Costa Rica, and expands rapidly in North America.

Rule Financial, an independent provider of business consultancy, IT consultancy and IT services to the global investment banking community, today announces record annual revenues of £48.2m. The year-on-year growth of 23% has been driven by a surge in demand amongst sellside and buyside firms for business and IT change projects to comply with the raft of global regulation impacting Capital Markets.

More specifically, Rule Financial has seen great demand for its services in supporting the international banking community adapt to imminent deadlines for upcoming regulatory changes. Capital Markets firms are predicted to invest $110 billion in IT in 2014, with North America accounting for almost half of that amount according to IDC Financial Insights.^[1]

As the impacts of Dodd-Frank regulation force the North American banking industry to make changes to operational processes, Rule Financial set up a new IT development centre in Costa Rica to provide additional resources that are aligned with North American time-zones. Meanwhile in Europe, Rule Financial has furthered its presence in Poland with the opening of its second Polish development centre, in the city of Poznań.

2013 was an outstanding year for Rule Financial, and this momentum has continued into 2014, with strong demand for services that will deliver comparable revenue growth rates in 2014. With the expansion of new global offices, the company has also seen headcount increase during 2013, growing by 33% to the current figure of over 800 employees worldwide.

Kristie Weatherford has joined to lead the user experience (UX) team in North America, delivering cutting edge customer-responsive solutions, particularly in the areas of risk and control. In London, Miguel Graca has joined as a UX design and architecture specialist. Rule Financial now boasts one of the largest global UX teams working in Capital Markets.

Rule Financial has also made further additions to its rapidly expanding Business Consulting team; a leading group of domain and business advisory experts that oversee the strategy, design and implementation of solutions for investment banks and other market participants. Recent new additions include; Amit Kohli, Richi Dhillon, Natalia Kozlovich and Tim Kimber, strengthening the already considerable experience within the team of securities finance markets, risk, regulation and other areas of the banking domain.

Chris Potts, CEO, Rule Financial, said: "Even in these difficult economic times, Rule Financial is assisting its clients to address the varied technical challenges they face. Each institution is reacting to global regulation and reviewing and revising large parts of their operations.  Rule Financial is already engaged in many transformational programmes to meet the regulations that are driving change in the market. As a result of this activity Rule Financial is superbly positioned to meet current and future compliance challenges.

As deadlines for new regulations such as MiFID II and BCBS239 draw nearer, financial organisations know that they can come to Rule Financial to receive our market leading business consultancy and IT delivery skills. I am delighted with our 2013 performance and the excellent work our global teams are continuing to deliver for our clients and I am sure 2014 will continue to be another superb year."

1. http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24407313  

------------------------------------------------------------------

About Rule Financial  

Rule Financial is a leading independent provider of business and IT services, employing over 800 people in the UK, the USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Spain and Poland. Our specialists work alongside their counterparts at the world's leading investment banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions, helping to lower costs, improve productivity and extract the maximum value from IT investments.

We cover all aspects of advisory, execution and support services. Our domain specialisms include: Securities Finance, Prime Services, Risk Management, Trading, Legal & Compliance and Operations. Our delivery specialisms include: advisory and execution services in system development, user-centric design, software development, integration, testing, on-going support and IT outsourcing.

We offer our clients end-to-end solutions that solve their complex business and IT issues. Our specialists have a deep understanding of the increasing regulatory pressures faced by financial institutions and a number of our recent engagements have included strategic consultancy around OTC derivatives regulation and the implications of central clearing on integrated risk and collateral management systems.

Press contact:
Debi Christie
Hotwire PR for Rule Financial
Email: rule@hotwirepr.com
Tel: +44-(0)20-7608-4695
Web: http://www.rulefinancial.com

SOURCE Rule Financial