Reconcile only when the same question gives two different numbers
One client, one day, five correct exposure figures. The differences are by design, and treating them as errors is what makes context feel like chaos.
Take one word every bank uses every day: exposure. For one corporate client with a £500m approved facility, £320m drawn and £15m of provisions, five teams can hold five different exposure figures on the same day. The figures here are illustrative, and each one is right.
The relationship manager sees £500m, because the question is how much more can be offered. Credit risk sees £410m, because the question is what could be lost in a bad scenario. Regulatory reporting sees £385m, because the rules set the formula. Finance sees £305m, because the figure has to match the balance sheet. Group risk cannot answer at all until the client's London and Singapore records are recognised as one client.
These are five correct answers to five different questions, all hiding behind one noun.
Why reconciliation programmes stall
Most institutions respond to differences like these with a reconciliation programme or a golden-source initiative. Both assume there is one true number waiting to be found. There isn't. The differences are by design, because the questions are different, and forcing them together removes information the business needs.
The chaos comes from somewhere else. The question each number answers gets frozen into a rule and loses its reason. How each number is produced gets optimised into one shared engine, with the reasoning split across code, parameters and month-end spreadsheets. What is left is a column of numbers that all claim to be exposure.
Holding the question with the process
Process context holds each question with the process that answers it: the steps, rules, inclusions, exclusions and assumptions, and the code, data, spreadsheets and people behind each step. Shared steps can still be reused, but every process knows which steps it depends on and why.
That gives a simple test. A difference between two questions is healthy. A difference within one question is a real break, and it is the only one worth reconciling.
The argument is set out in full in the paper Context Is Not a Thing. It's a Point of View., which you can download below.