New research from SIX Securities Services reveals the importance of real-time settlement when it comes to choosing a new collateral management provider. Four in ten (40%) respondents report that their organisation has replaced or added a new collateral management provider in the last 18 months with a further 18% in the process of doing so. Real-time settlement was viewed as the most important factor during the selection process (83%), followed closely by CCP collateral acceptance (75%), Real-time reporting (63%), flexibility to meet regulatory changes (54%) and transparency of collateral pools regardless of whether collateral pools are published (25%). Only 21% of respondents cite cost as an extremely important factor when deciding to choose a new provider.

The views between IT decision makers and collateral respondents differ slightly. All collateral respondents cited real-time settlement as the most desired feature while only 73% of IT decision makers agree. The biggest gap between IT decision makers and collateral respondents shows in the question on collateral pools: 7% versus 56% respectively of respondents consider it extremely important when moving to a new collateral management provider.

Those who retained their current collateral management provider say their reasons for doing so come down to IT interfacing problems (61%), closely followed by the complication element (55%) and the length of the on-boarding process (55%).

Marcus Harreus, Head Clearing, SIX Securities Services (SIX x-clear), commented on the findings:

“Mobility of cash and securities is key in collateral management, especially in today’s economic environment. SIX Securities Services offers its clients an efficient and coherent market for securities clearing and settlement in Switzerland and the euro area.

With regulations such as Basel III (in particular LCR) requiring banks to hold higher amounts of high-quality collateral (or cash), financial institutions are trying to cope with the reduced profitability of these positions by increase operational efficiency and by optimizing their cash and collateral management capabilities.”