Norne Securities

We've been working with Norne Securities for about two years now, but Morten Pettersen, Asset Manager at Norne Securities, has worked with us since 2013. When he started working at Norne Securities in January of 2020, we created a new partnership there. We spoke to Morten to learn more about how Nordkap contributes to alleviating the work processes at Norne Securities and how the collaboration has developed over the years.

Quick Facts About Norne Securities

Norne Securities manages debt portfolios for municipalities. At the moment, they work with four municipalities in Norway, helping them manage debt portfolios worth more than 8 billion NOK. 

The company has 50 employees, and its main office is located in Bergen, Norway. 

Let’s get into the interview!

So, tell us: what does your partnership with Nordkap look like? And how did it all begin?

I started using Nordkap in 2013 when I was still at a previous job, and when I started working at Norne Securities at the beginning of 2020, we decided to work with Nordkap here as well. 

As I mentioned earlier, we manage debt portfolios for municipalities, which involves a lot of complex portfolio work, budget work, and a whole lot of reporting. Before I started working with Nordkap, we didn’t really have a well-functioning way to handle the debt portfolios; everything from the control of the portfolios to reporting and budgeting was done directly in Excel. The problem was that the more clients we got, the harder it became to manage everything manually in Excel documents. It simply became way too complicated with too many numbers to keep track of and continually update manually.

That led to that too many mistakes being made, quite frankly. To put it shortly, we simply hadn’t found a good way to handle more complex debt portfolio work, and we needed a solution to that problem. And that’s when Nordkap came into the picture. 

How has the partnership has changed over the years? And how have your work processes changed?

Nordkap has, as you know, changed a lot during the time I’ve worked with the system; there are several more useful features and tools now, and as the system has evolved, a lot of my work has been automized which in turn has made it more efficient. 

We still do the same things we previously did in Excel, but with the safety of using a digital system. One of the things that have contributed to our work processes changing has been the feature that lets us simulate different interest rate scenarios, using both our own data that we enter into the system and the market’s interest and interest rate forecasts. 

Thanks to the system and the automation it creates, our work has become much more efficient when it comes to our consultation processes. One of our main jobs is to consult our clients, and therefore, we need trustworthy and correct information to base our advice on – and we get can easily get that information from the system.

As a bonus, we save a lot of time when we don’t need to waste unnecessary time and energy performing analyses and calculations manually since it can all be done directly in the system.

What would you say is the biggest benefit to working with Nordkap?

The most significant benefit is that we can use the system for our clients’ budget work. For example, it’s been a great help that we can simulate different interests and interest rate scenarios by adding our own interests along with the market’s interest rate forecasts. That way, we can get a well-informed basis for budgets much quicker than previously. And, of course, the debt portfolio work. That work is tremendously time-consuming to do correctly in Excel since it requires the numbers to continually be updated manually.

I also appreciate that the system is flexible when setting up the debt portfolios since that allows us to get the precise analyses we need. For us, it has been incredibly easy to tailor the system to what we need and want. You simply choose the tools and modules you need and don’t need to think about the rest.

Of course, storing reports directly in the system is really helpful, too – both for portfolios and analyses and as tools in our work.

We’re so happy to hear that! And, to conclude, if you were to describe Nordkap with one word, what word would it be?

I would say user-friendly. That’s what really stands out to me. I would even go so far as to say that user-friendliness is Nordkap’s most significant benefit. It makes the system easy to use and allows us to be independent when working in the system. So, yes, user-friendliness is definitely a good word to describe Nordkap.