DealHub (Option Computers Ltd) announced today that its FX post trade connectivity platform has been deployed at Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank (Crédit Agricole CIB). DealHub’s modular platform combines the firm’s comprehensive market connectivity with flexible, rules based trade routing and processing, to provide Crédit Agricole CIB with a unified backbone for Straight Through Processing (STP), compliance and post trade workflow automation in their foreign exchange business.
 
Benjamin Gedeon, Global Head of Forex IT at Crédit Agricole CIB commented “Having evaluated a number of options to rationalise multiple post trade infrastructures, a key reason that we chose DealHub is because they offer more than just a connectivity pipe. The rules engine gives us the flexibility we need to rapidly evolve our infrastructure and workflows in a fast changing market, while the user interface provides valuable transparency for both our trading operations and compliance teams. DealHub have delivered a fast, smooth roll-out of the platform, which proved its capacity and resilience with a flawless performance during recent market volatility”.
 
Delivered on premise or as a fully managed service, the DealHub platform helps banks take cost and complexity out of their post trade operations by providing a unified interface between the fragmented external marketplace and the constantly evolving ecosystem of internal bank systems. By creating this unique point of standardisation in the post trade workflow, DealHub delivers a single platform for complex trade processing tasks, as well as providing unrivalled transparency into multi-channel FX flows for both trading and compliance teams.
 
“The successful DealHub roll out at Crédit Agricole CIB is a great example of the value DealHub’s flexible platform can deliver in Post Trade, going far beyond standard STP connectivity” said Chris Leaver, DealHub COO, “we’ve honed our technology and expertise during fifteen years of working to optimise the post trade processes of the world’s largest banks. As a result, our platform now has unrivalled connectivity, performance, and workflow flexibility that’s helping banks of all shapes and sizes reduce both cost and complexity, with fast implementation times ensuring benefits are quickly realised. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with Crédit Agricole CIB to further streamline their post trade operations in the months ahead”.
 
Used today by sixteen of the top twenty global FX banks to capture and process huge volumes of trade flow, DealHub’s post trade platformincorporates connectivity to more than 50 execution venues and bank platforms, as well trade publishing to a growing network of global and regional banks and buy-side institutions. The platform is also uniquely capable of capturing the output of conversational dealing and chat platforms and seamlessly integrating this with flow from eFX channels. Real-time routing, processing and surveillance of this unified feed is enabled by additional modules based on DealHub’s powerful rules engine and a flexible user interface that allows workflows to be tailored to a customer’s precise needs – from position keeping to risk splitting, profitability analysis to compliance alerting. A regulation compliant archive completes the platform, providing a powerful resource for trading and compliance investigations.
 
DealHub’s post trade services integrate seamlessly with the company’s complete range of trading, post trade, compliance and business intelligence solutions, including DealHub RefleX, the modular eFX platform launched in 2014.

Gresham Computing plc, a leading provider of transaction control solutions, today announced the launch of Clareti Transaction Control (CTC) Transaction Reporting. The solution allows financial institutions (FIs) to verify and validate that trades reported to trade repositories comply with the requirements of regulations for eligible trades under Dodd Frank, EMIR, REMIT, G20, MiFID and MiFIR.

A set of pre-defined rules within CTC allows multiple sources of internal data to be compared, validated and verified, so that the correct information is delivered to regulators and registered reporting mechanisms, in the required format, with all of the associated rules applied. The solution validates, in real-time, the integrity of the data held in all FI systems from the front and back office through to the exchange. It checks that the transactional information recorded in the organisation’s internal books and records matches the trade repository view. This provides peace of mind to FIs that their transaction reporting processes are effective, that data is complete and reporting obligations to regulators have been satisfied.

The in-built logic contained within CTC Transaction Reporting allows it to deal with multiple regulations and reporting entities concurrently. Based on certain data fields, or internal reference data, CTC can automatically determine which trades need to be reported to which repositories and reporting entities, such as CME, UnaVista, MAS or the DTCC. CTC can rapidly smooth the transition process should FIs decide to change trade repositories.

“In a tough regulatory environment where approved individuals are to be held accountable for transaction reporting, it is essential to maintain and demonstrate evidence of rigorous financial control and integrity across the organisation,” says Chris Errington, CEO, Gresham. “The old days of sending transaction reports to the Trade Repositories (TRs) and hoping they are accurate have gone. The regulators require accuracy and are starting to validate the information that is sent to the Approved Reporting Mechanisms (ARMs), as demonstrated by some recent high profile cases involving fines and public criticism of major institutions. The ability to deploy CTC in days allows clients to adapt to the ever changing regulatory landscape quickly and cost effectively.”

CTC’s in-built flexibility and scalability ensures that it is particularly adept in handling non-standardised data sets, such as OTC derivative transactions, which can involve the matching of data formats over 1,000 columns wide. While such data formats are problematic for legacy systems, CTC handles them effortlessly. As a result CTC is ideally suited to meeting the demands set by Dodd Frank and EMIR as well as adapting to any future regulatory 

OptionsCity Software, a global provider of electronic trading solutions for professional futures and options traders, today announced the full release of its modular trading platform, Metro NOW. Metro NOW offers professional traders, financial institutions, hedge funds, banks, and commodity trading houses a customizable and scalable futures and options-trading platform, deployed seamlessly via the web.

“Trading software used to be one-size fits all, but in today’s dynamic market environment, trading platforms must be able to adjust to what products are traded and what strategies are deployed,” said Hazem Dawani, CEO and cofounder of OptionsCity Software. “Metro NOW reimagines what trading software could be – empowering traders to create the perfect experience through widgets downloaded from our newly launched City Store.”

Metro NOW blends professional traders’ need for robust pricing, execution and risk-management with the ability to build customized strategies inside the same environment. With Metro NOW, traders can build their own custom widgets or buy off-the-shelf widgets through OptionsCity’s City Store, freeing up development resources for more critical elements of a trading strategy.

“Traditional trading software was rigid, forcing firms into a decision on where they have to compromise – on either functionality or on time and resources,” said OptionsCity CTO and cofounder Victor Glava. “Metro NOW shifts the paradigm and allows firms to both build and buy. Our flexible architecture means that firms can dedicate time and resources developing mission-critical elements, instead of reinventing the wheel.”

• White Papers
• 15.03.2015 07:00 pm

Misys, the leading financial software company, today unveiled the first banking app prototype for the Apple Watch – the wearable device which will be a major driver for contextual marketing in financial services. Misys Labs, a dedicated team focused on disruptive innovation, has created the app to enable banks to provide services to their customers in an entirely new way, providing consumers with new levels of customer service and experience.

The Misys app for the Apple Watch, named Misys FusionBanking Essence BankTime, is designed to give consumers greater control and clarity of their personal finances. Misys has used Apple’s “Glance” feature – a Glance is a quick view of the app's most important content – to showcase the Comfort Zone display, which clearly shows a consumer’s available balance. 

The consumer can rapidly drill down to get more details of balance, history and all transactions via the smartwatch. The banking app encourages consumers to execute transactions directly from the Apple Watch, for example paying for a bill in a restaurant. With voice command and traditional swipe and tap control, consumers can interact with the app in whatever way they want. And with real-time guidance, the app is simple to use.

The new communication channel means consumers will never miss a notification from their bank, for example a fraud alert, a special offer or an appointment reminder. It opens up a new level of contextual marketing for banks and offers services based on a customer’s location.

The Misys FusionBanking Essence BankTime prototype can be seen in this demo video.

“Our ambition at Misys Labs is to bring financial services into consumers’ everyday lives”, states Tamás Grünzweig, Head of Innovation, Misys. “We focus on make banking relevant and frustration-free. Wearable devices, like the Apple Watch, bring a new, more convenient channel for consumers.”

Misys brings disruptive innovation to its 2,000 customers worldwide. Its portfolio of next-generation digital channels – Misys FusionBanking Essence Digital – includes online and mobile banking, personal financial management, gamification and digital sales. Its award-winning solutions help banks make banking ‘frustration-free’ for consumers, generating new revenue streams for banks.

Milestone Group, the global provider of investment management fund processing technology, is pleased to announce that NEPC, LLC (NEPC) has selected pControl to be its core platform to perform end-to-end account processing for its growing discretionary business. The platform gives Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) providers like NEPC a single platform to manage all their portfolio’s activities including analytics, trading, cash management and valuations.

There is an increasing number of asset management, consulting and specialized firms performing outsourced services, including discretionary asset allocation, investment manager selection and implementation for institutional investors. As the OCIO model continues to gain momentum among institutional investors and AUM grows, there is now more focus on the efficiency of internal operations. Milestone Group’s pControl platform automates and enables tight controls over each aspect of the business, reducing operational risk as a result.

Steve Charlton, head of NEPC’s discretionary business, said: “pControl allows us to shift a range of key functions for our business onto a single platform, streamlining and simplifying decision support, fund trading and compliance capabilities with the scale and flexibility to support our business. Of the multiple systems reviewed, we felt Milestone Group’s was the best fit to support us for the long term.”

Robert Caporale, Managing Director and Head of North America at Milestone Group, said: “Milestone Group has been providing a broad set of operational solutions to our investment management clients for many years. The industrial strength of our platform offers OCIO managers the same advantages institutional clients have come to know and expect. We’re looking forward to working with NEPC in support of its growing discretionary services business and continuing to build on our successful relationship with them in the future.”

• White Papers
• 08.03.2015 07:00 pm