“Best practice” is one of the most overused phrases in financial services.
Don’t get me wrong — best practice matters. It gives us a proven starting point, a benchmark, and a way to avoid obvious mistakes. But treating best practice as a fixed rulebook rather than a flexible guide is where organisations get stuck.
Best practice should be moulded to fit your organisation, not forced onto it.
The Hidden Trap: “We’ve Always Done It This Way”
In many firms, especially those with long-tenured teams, there’s an unspoken rule:
“This is how we do things here.”
When large parts of the workforce have been in the same organisation for 10+ years, processes often calcify. Not because people are doing a bad job — but because success in the past creates resistance to change in the present.
The problem?Processes and data don’t stand still.
Successful institutions understand that what worked five years ago might quietly be holding them back today.
Why Reconciliations Feel the Pain First
Nowhere is this more obvious than in reconciliations.
We regularly see financial services firms running:
Match rules that haven’t been reviewed in years
Systems that can be upgraded but never were
Data feeds that have subtly changed — but the logic hasn’t
The result?Diminishing match rates.
Not because the data is “bad,” but because small changes in formats, reference data, or enrichment never made it into the rules. Over time, this creates what we call data leakage — value slipping through the cracks unnoticed.
Is AI the Answer? Not On Its Own
There’s a growing belief that AI will magically fix reconciliation problems.
AI can help — but without strong, well-designed processes underneath, it’s just a band-aid.
If the foundation is weak:
AI learns the wrong patterns
Exceptions multiply instead of shrink
Complexity increases rather than reduces
Technology amplifies what already exists. It doesn’t replace the need for good process design.
Sometimes You Replace. Sometimes You Refine.
The real work is knowing the difference.
Sometimes the old process needs to be replaced
Sometimes it just needs to be stripped back, re-examined, and tweaked
Both require experience, objectivity, and the confidence to challenge “best practice” when it no longer fits reality.
Where ReconIQ Comes In
At ReconIQ, we don’t sell templates or dogma.
We help organisations:
Take the right lessons from best practice
Adapt them to their data, controls, and operating model
Optimise processes before throwing technology at the problem
Whether you’re modernising, simplifying, or starting again — we partner with you to achieve the best results for your reconciliation practice, not someone else’s.
Because best practice isn’t about copying.It’s about thinking clearly, evolving constantly, and getting the basics right.
