The Net Payments Hub offers an infrastructure designed to enable the net settlement and payment of matched trades. Instead of undertaking individual calculations counterpart-by-counterpart, the service aggregates the net settlement positions to create a single whole-of-market position for each settlement day. Customers benefit from earlier reconciliation information that allows them to organise their cash flow, reduce their liquidity exposure and meet their liquidity obligations earlier in the day. In addition, they benefit from a settlement account with pre-funded or provisional credit facilities from Barclays Bank, without needing to change their current corporate banking arrangements. 

Commenting on the announcement, Alex Murton, Head of Transfer Agency, UK at Schroders said, “Since first connecting to Calastone’s transaction network in 2009, we have benefited considerably from cost and processing risk reduction and improvements in operational efficiency from order routing to re-registrations and now payments. Being part of the Net Payments Hub, we will now benefit from full STP throughout the lifecycle of orders routed through Calastone. No entry duplication, full transparency throughout and better still, we now receive earlier information about our liquidity obligations.” 

Jon Willis, Chief Commercial Officer of Calastone added, “Industry collaboration, innovation and interoperability lie at Calastone’s core: since inception we have been consulting with the industry to help them achieve full STP. In all our developments we have ensured that industry is served by models, processes and technology designed with their requirements in mind. We are delighted that Schroders is part of the Calastone Net Payments Hub and look forward to playing our part in helping them reap efficiencies right along the processing chain.”

Andrew Fenton, Director, Financial Institutions Group, Barclays added, “Any reduction in cash flow exposure can only help firms reduce their liquidity and counterparty risks. We are very pleased to be partnering with Calastone and are delighted by customer confirmation that the Calastone Net Payments Hub offers a practical means for firms to further reduce their costs and counterparty risk.”