SmartStream - Press Releases

SmartStream partner with Alliance Factors to further support the Russian market

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:41:18 GMT

Alliance Factors specialises in business-to-business payments, back-office automation, compliance management and other STP-basedsolutions. Together with SmartStream they will help the Russian client base address STP driven challenges in the back-office for reconciliations across all asset classes, cash and liquidity management, corporate actions and data management services.

Alastair McGill, Executive Vice President, Business Development and Alliances, SmartStream Technologies, says: “Alliance Factors have good practical on-ground experience and skilled staff and are therefore able to provide high quality services including consulting, implementation, training and maintenance for our strong pipeline of customers in the region. I am confident that together we will help Russian financial institutions to further improve their back-office processing requirements”.

Alexander Kusheverskiy, Chief Executive Officer, Member of the Board, Alliance Factors, states: “As a team we will be able to provide a cost-effective back-office processing solutions for our Russian clients. There is a need in this market, as in any market, to look at further improving processing, reducing costs and focusing on customer needs and profitability. We look forward to working with the SmartStream team”.

About Alliance Factors
Alliance Factors is an authorized SWIFT Regional and Service partner for Russia, CIS and Mongolia since 1995 and is one of the oldest Russian partners of IBM. The company specialists are certified for sales, installation and maintenance of a widerange of products and solutions. http://www.alliance.ru/

SmartStream Releases New Accounts Receivable Solution to Enable Banks to Provide Intelligent Payments Solution for their Corporate Clients

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:00:00 GMT

TLM Accounts Receivable was originally developed in conjunction with a major financial institution in Asia to meet a growing market need. Seeing that transaction banking could provide revenue generating opportunities, the bank was looking to diversify the menu of services offered to its corporate clients, thus increasing customer loyalty and share of wallet. Due to the multiple payment channels available, many corporates face the challenge of visibility of payments to invoices, tracking these payments and reporting on Daily Sales Outstanding (DSO). Therefore the bank wanted to be able to provide an intelligent receivables solution that would encapsulate middle-office systems including reconciliations, cash flow forecasting and exception management.

TLM Accounts Receivable is a rapidly deployable, packaged solution which utilises SmartStream's proven platform for the matching and investigation of outstanding invoices. It has the capabilities to provide efficient identification and tracking of unmatched payments helping reduce DSO and the ability to alert clients on critical business events, such as overdue payments, through the use of workflow rules.

Dr Darryl Twiggs, Head of Product Management, SmartStream: "Having completed a successful implementation of TLM Accounts Receivable with our client in Asia, we are overwhelmed with the interest we are receiving from our clients and are now rolling it out globally. With an increasing number of companies looking to their banks for guidance with regards to payments processes, SmartStream is in a great position to provide support to these banks with solutions that offer true business benefit to their customers. As a packaged product TLM Accounts Receivable allows for immediate deployment and fast ROI whilst maintaining the flexibility to address specific client needs: different invoice types; multi-currencies; multiple types of clients; native languages. We truly believe it offers a unique opportunity for financial institutions to increase revenues and offer value-added services to their clients."

SmartStream supports SWIFT's Global Electronic Trade Confirmation (GETC) solution

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:20:16 GMT

GETC uses well established SWIFT ISO 15022 messages to provide a standardised process for matching fixed income and equities trades for both buy and sell-side firms. The post-trade world still has a large amount of manual processing and GETC enables participants to reuse their existing SWIFT infrastructure to create a standardised and automated approach to confirmation matching. GETC minimises operational risk, increases STP and significantly reduces the costs of post-trade processing.

Dr Darryl Twiggs, Head of Product Management, SmartStream Technologies, comments: "With the ever increasing pressure to reduce costs in the middle and back-office while at the same time lowering the risk of failed or late trades, customers are looking for alternative post-trade solutions. By supporting the GETC solution our customers now have more options for handling post-trade processing. In addition to supporting the automation of allocation only or block allocation confirmations, SmartStream’s TLM Trade Process Management solution offers the complete automation of the transaction across the middle and back-office from point of execution to Settlement".

Paul Taylor, Director New Business Development – Global Matching, SWIFT, says: "It is a pleasure to be working with SmartStream to make our GETC local confirmation solution even more accessible to the marketplace. As the industry strives to improve post-trade operational efficiency, many buy and sell-side firms are opting for local matching solutions for the automation of trade confirmations. By supporting the use of GETC, and providing an installed local matching engine that accepts GETC messages, SmartStream is making a great contribution towards helping the community drive out cost and risk from this vital post-trade function."

GETC is an ISO standards-based messaging solution for the automation of block trade, confirmation, allocation and affirmation process. TLM Trade Process Management collects, validates and enriches trades before intelligently routing them to the most appropriate matching venue, whether that is centrally or locally matched, with rules determining the appropriate venue before handling the final settlement of the trade.

BRQ and SmartStream Partner to Strengthen Operational Efficiency and Control for Financial Services Firms in Brazil

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:30:00 GMT

São Paulo and London, 24 April 2013 - BRQ, a leading solutions and services company for Information Technology in Brazil, and SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, announced a partnership that will bring greater operational efficiency and control to the Brazilian financial services market. With the alliance, BRQ will distribute, implement and support SmartStream’s Transaction Lifecycle Management solutions across the Brazilian market to help clients ensure information integrity throughout the front, middle and back-office operations.

The alliance partners will initially focus on SmartStream's market-leading reconciliation products. Together, BRQ and SmartStream will provide banks, capital markets firms and domestic cards and payments operations with access to proven technology, deep industry expertise and best practices gained from transforming reconciliation operations of international and global institutions. Specifically, both companies will work to transform the management of reconciliations to reduce costs, lower operational risk and increase client’s agility, enabling them to better service their internal customers.

Banks have very high daily transaction volumes. This information associated with these transactions is subject to specific rules, and regulators insist on the control of reconciliation of the data as an essential control. Today, reconciliation is typically handled in a decentralised way, manually or with ineffective automation," explains Bruno Schmidt, Director of BRQ Financial Services Division, which specialises in providing services and solutions to financial organisations. "This process, in addition to being time consuming, is constantly subject to errors. With SmartStream’s secure best-in-class technology, effective control of the data and operations is guaranteed, regardless of the systems involved".

Besides reducing the risk of operational errors, the solution reduces costs and boasts a high return on investment in a short period of time. "The software gives banks a number of other benefits, such as a gain in agility, since all processes are now automated. Thus, teams can worry about other issues more strategic to the business," he concludes.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO, SmartStream, said: "We have a long-standing commitment to Latin America and specifically to Brazil, having operated more than ten years in the region. BRQ, is one of the very top IT solutions companies in Brazil, brings local knowledge and local support for our current customers. They also have the ability, through their expertise in financial services, to work with firms in Brazil to make sure they get the most from our solutions, in terms of ROI and fit with their business processes."

SmartStream partners with Trustlink to meet growing demand in sub-Saharan Africa

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:30:00 GMT

Headquartered in Pretoria, Trustlink provides integrated Straight Through Processing (STP), B2B and Enterprise Application Integration solutions that improve cost-efficiency and increase operational reliability. Trustlink will work with SmartStream to help identify potential clients across the sub-Saharan region and to promote SmartStream’s solutions for the middle and back-office.

Tertius Vermeulen, CEO, Trustlink, comments, "As the African market continues to experience rapid growth, organisations are facing major change which in turn brings unique challenges. To meet these challenges, many firms are reviewing their existing systems and processes and, as a result, we have started to see a high level of interest in transaction processing solutions. As the market-leading provider of transaction lifecycle management, SmartStream was the obvious choice to partner with and we are delighted that we are going to be working together to provide a range of solutions that will benefit not only our existing clients, but other financial institutions across the region."

Alastair McGill, Executive Vice President, Business Development and Alliances at SmartStream Technologies, adds, "Trustlink is already a well-established company within Africa and, as demonstrated through its recently extended appointment as the SWIFT business partner for the Western, Central and Southern Africa region, the company is known for offering quality services, industry expertise and a high level of professionalism. By partnering with Trustlink in sub-Saharan Africa, we believe we offer clients in the region an attractive proposition; SmartStream’s world class software solutions supported and delivered by a regional team of local experts. By working together I’m confident that we can help financial institutions across the region overcome their transaction processing issues though greater automation and control."

SmartStream expands African operations with new office in Johannesburg

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:19:29 GMT

SmartStream has an established client base in Africa and the launch of this new office signals its intent to provide a full range of middle and back-office solutions through a direct sales operation with assistance from channel partners in certain countries. The new operation will be led by Pritesh Kotecha, Vice President Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Roland Brandli has also been appointed Sales Manager, Africa.

Commenting on the increased market presence, Pritesh said, "Over the past few years SmartStream has transformed itself by bringing a wealth of new middle and back-office automation solutions to market. In Africa, growth rates, combined with client and regulatory demands, are forcing organisations to seek ways to achieve greater efficiency and control, while looking to drive down unnecessary costs. I truly believe SmartStream is in a unique position to help these firms and I am looking forward to working with these institutions to achieve more efficient, streamlined and cost-effective operations."

Roland added, "The Johannesburg office is a significant step for SmartStream, it demonstrates our intention to invest resources in this rapidly developing market. As financial institutions in the region continue to experience a high level of growth, the need for automation is becoming more pressing. By establishing a local presence we are not only able to provide a better service to our existing clients, but can also help other firms in the region by delivering scalable and flexible transaction processing environments."

To launch SmartStream's new South African operations, the office will be hosting a series of transaction lifecycle management focused events over the coming months.

For more information on our South African operations call +27 11 881 5600 or email roland.brandli@smartstream-stp.com.

Oddo Services Live With SmartStream's TLM Corona for all Business Process Outsourcing in Switzerland

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 08:00:00 GMT

SmartStream's TLM Corona will let Oddo Services Switzerland's clients perform all of their reconciliations on a single platform, in a fully auditable environment, allowing them to not only increase their operational efficiency but also providing them with greater visibility in terms of risk management.

Olivier Rolland, Chief Executive Officer, Oddo Services says: "We have been impressed by the TLM Corona platform’s robustness and reputation. Moreover, the TLM Corona platform’s architecture will allow us to very easily add new clients as we grow our Swiss BPO platform."

Emmanuel Lesur, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Sales, SmartStream Technologies says: "We are very enthusiastic that Oddo Services, one of the major Back Office outsourcing provider in the French market selected TLM Corona for its new Swiss business. Our goal is to continue working together as partners to help financial firms in the region solve important issues such as better control of operational risk and enhanced visibility of actual cash balances. This will allow greater efficiencies by enabling the institution to capitalise on current market trends and remain competitive in today’s very challenging global environment."

TLM Corona's modules will provide a range of functionality for the intra-day reconciliation of cash transactions, securities messages and confirmations. It will provide functionality out of the box for all of Oddo Services Switzerland’s clients by significantly reducing their time to market.

The intra-day capabilities of the product will support the automation of what was previously manual end-of-day processing. Oddo Services Switzerland's clients will be able to accurately forecast positions based on actual cash positions and not predictions. This will allow liquidity to be managed real time basis, enabling greater control of financial exposures for better decision making.

Ringkjøbing Landbobank Selects SmartStream's TLM Corporate Actions Solution

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 08:11:29 GMT

The Bank's continued success and growth in transaction volumes has led them to seek out a solution to streamline their corporate actions processes. After reviewing the available offerings, Ringkjøbing Landbobank chose SmartStream's TLM Corporate Actions solution to support their entire event management lifecycle needs and to meet all of their on-going regulatory requirements.

Alan Jones, Product Manager, SmartStream Technologies said: "We are delighted to have been selected by Ringkjøbing Landbobank. As they continue to experience growth in their customer market, corporate actions processing needs will only become more complex. It then becomes essential to manage and maintain control of operational costs – which is key for any bank in the current environment."

Corporate actions can be a multi-faceted business; a rights issue, tender offer or dividend payment may involve many different market participants. Data may need to be captured from multiple systems in order to provide a better service to customers, including risk reduction, fewer errors and faster response times.

Ms Bettina Thomsen Bagger, Head of Operations, Ringkjøbing Landbobank, stated: "We are looking forward to working with the SmartStream team. They have certainly proved their technology to be the number one provider in Denmark. This advanced automation will help us continue to achieve our key goal which is to further improve the service we provide to our local customer base."

The customised TLM Corporate Actions solution used by the Bank will include the additional modules: Reference Data Management, Event Management, Election Management, Entitlement Calculations and Posting.

Jyske Bank Live with SmartStream's TLM Corporate Actions Solution

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:23:11 GMT

Following a market review Jyske Bank implemented TLM Corporate Actions to gain control and visibility of their complete end-to-end corporate actions process. Corporate actions processing is highly complex and as volumes increase, managing the process and having a holistic view is critical for any financial institution. TLM Corporate Actions controls all data exceptions, milestone dates and key tasks associated with all events.

Troels Linderoth Lolck, Director, Head of Securities Services, Jyske Bank, stated: “The implementation was a quick and smooth process without any disruption to our day-to-day activities. We now have complete visibility, control and flexibility for all of our event processing requirements. We are very pleased to take on board the SmartStream TLM Corporate Actions product into our back office operations.”

The TLM Corporate Actions solution includes several additional modules such as Reference Data Manager, Event Manager, communications, election management, entitlement calculation and posting. With all modules working together seamlessly the corporate actions process is now poised to run faster, more accurately and with greater transparency.

Alan Jones, Product Manager, SmartStream Technologies said: “TLM Corporate Actions is now becoming the de facto corporate actions product in Denmark. We are delighted to be working with Jyske Bank as a partner to help them manage their corporate actions processes”.

SmartStream First to Launch Single Reconciliations Solution for all Back Office Operations with TLM

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:22:51 GMT

There is a drive towards a single utility, as opposed to siloed operations, in the back office, where one team can manage the entire back office function. This allows for better control over each entity and the ability to confidently report to all business lines. The new SmartStream offering avoids the need for multiple systems, multiple licences and the training of employees on different systems.

With a single solution for all reconciliations types, TLM Reconciliations Premium version 2.4 has been benchmarked with two tier-one investment banks, who were able to carry out over half a billion auto matches in one hour, setting a new industry standard.

Darryl Twiggs, Head of Product Management, SmartStream Technologies, says: “From conversations I’ve had with the major banks it is clear the big focus for this year is to develop a single-platform for all back-office operations. Clients are looking to take advantage of economies of scale, cost reductions and overall control of the back office by bringing it closer together, with one team managing the entire process. We are the only vendor to provide a single reconciliations product for all instruments in the market and are pleased to see the interest from several major banks globally.”

He continues: “Reconciliations is just the start, banks are looking at the entire package to manage all back office requirements on one platform. We are continually developing our solutions on a regular basis by understanding our client needs through our user forums where we gather information on specific market needs.”

The latest version includes a standard reconciliations package for OTC Derivatives. Regulations arising from Dodd-Frank and EMIR, place new demands for regular and in some cases, daily reconciliations of these complex instruments. SmartStream’s customers can now roll-out an industry standard model for OTC Derivatives in the fastest time available today.

One of the challenges for IT departments is to bring new reconciliations to production in the timeframe demanded by business operations. Version 2.4, with its standard ‘out of the box’ packages and a new graphical message mapping ETL tool, solves all of these challenges.

TLM Reconciliations Premium version 2.4 delivers a single solution for a wide range of reconciliation packages including cash, securities, credits and debits of all types, exchange listed derivatives, OTC Derivatives, all contracts, Net Asset Valuation and Market Valuations, as well as generic intersystem reconciliations.

SmartStream First to Provide T+0 Liquidity Management Solution

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 01:00:00 GMT

With current pressures of intra-day reporting, TLM Liquidity Management consolidates reporting to provide a global picture of the cash-flow life cycle in real-time. The product consolidates all cash and reconciliations positions to deliver a single view across all currencies and accounts, while at the same time highlighting the current risk profile across all balances. This single, standard reporting capability meets the current FSA reporting requirements.

The T+0 capability provides a view of transactions in real-time as opposed to the next day or three days later (T+3), which enables real-time currency forecasting, position management and the movement of cash without occurring additional costs.

Dr. Darryl Twiggs, Executive Vice President Product Management, SmartStream, states: “The industry has been crying out for a T+0 solution for years. It is vital in this current economic climate to have a clear picture of current global balances and to be able to move funds between accounts to optimize cash balances. Also, as errors can be rectified before they become critical, cash can be controlled effectively and funding decisions no longer need to be made based on yesterday’s data, this allows financial institutions the ability to focus on investment and lending opportunities.”

TLM Liquidity Management offers the advanced capability to avoid duplication of efforts that can be costly and time consuming. For many financial institutions even the most advanced operations must continue to check that projected cash flows have settled both intraday (for funding purposes) and again next morning (for legal statement reconciliation). This new product combines these two disciplines to avoid such duplications.

Based on a SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) the solution will consolidate existing siloed infrastructures into one automated, enterprise-wide solution, allowing clients to view the origination of the information helping them to better justify a position.

SWIFT partners with SmartStream to evolve its Accord Matching Service

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

As part of the Agreement, SmartStream will provide a number of underlying components of the updated Accord platform, including elements of the Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solution suite, a powerful, highly scalable and flexible Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) business-driven product.

By incorporating SmartStream’s technology, SWIFT will offer the market a robust confirmation matching service introducing a level of personalization previously only available with onsite systems. The enhanced platform will also support all commonly traded instruments, allow for the rapid addition of new asset classes, and provide numerous value added features such as an affirmation model as well as fax and e-mail processing.

“Given the ongoing market transformation, regulatory pressure and the increasing complexity of traded instruments, post-trade processing is once again at centre stage and a top priority of many operations executives,” said Javier Perez-Tasso, Head of Marketing, SWIFT. “We are delighted to work with SmartStream to deliver a cloud-based solution that will reduce the cost per trade, through a significant increase in operator efficiency. This initiative is an integral part of SWIFT’s strategy to grow our matching and related post trade services across the global treasury and securities industries.”

Important to SmartStream is that this agreement supports the company’s objective of placing TLM at the heart of industry initiatives focused on dramatically reducing operating costs while creating scalable platforms that drive more efficient and collaborative operations. For SmartStream’s existing 1,500 clients who have deployed TLM across their middle and back office they will now have the option to access the SWIFT-operated, centrally managed Accord rather than deploying TLM or another matching solution on site.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO, SmartStream Technologies, said, “The combination of SmartStream’s sophisticated matching and integration solutions, SWIFT’s security and availability credentials and our joint experience in the global matching arena, will allow us to deliver together a highly efficient service. We’re excited to see our products leveraged in this way, creating an industry owned, market leading confirmation service which will support clients and communities in need of a common matching platform as they seek to control the cost and risk of trading a broader array of products in increasing volumes.”

The first release of the new Accord platform will be launched in early 2014 with further releases to follow.

Euroclear Bank and SmartStream to create Central Data Utility

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:10:00 GMT

By pooling extensive data management expertise, SmartStream and Euroclear Bank will be delivering meaningful client back-office savings twinned with the highest possible level of securities information accuracy. Initially starting with Eurobond data and subsequently expanding to other asset types from a broad geographic scope of markets, this new service is unique in that it is available to market participants in the form of a centralised utility. CDU clients can benefit from a centralised and simplified process to access cleansed data from their chosen data vendors.

Yves Poullet, Chief Executive Officer, Euroclear Bank, said: “Capital market firms attribute 35-40% of all trade breaks they experience to avoidable mismatches in reference data. Through our unique partnership with SmartStream, we aim to drastically reduce the number of mismatches by providing the highest quality of data accuracy, including the use of in-house information and a comprehensive network of other data providers. Firms no longer need to bear the enormous costs and risks of scrubbing securities information themselves. Estimates put back-office client savings at EUR 20 million per year and more for those high-volume consumers of securities data that choose to receive refined data from the Central Data Utility.”

“We are very proud we could help bring this revolutionary data utility to market,” said Philippe Chambadal, Chief Executive Officer, SmartStream. “The financial services market has never seen a bank-owned utility tackle data issues in this way; it literally transforms the way this information is managed.” Chambadal continued: “This service will not only offer best-of-breed data sourcing, but will provide a common platform which will incrementally drive up data quality as more clients participate in the service.”

This partnership makes perfect business sense and draws on the unique capabilities of the two different, but complementary, companies. Euroclear Bank, as a user-owned capital market service provider, operates proven post-trade infrastructure. It collects information directly from issuing agents and acts as the national numbering authority for over 200,000 Eurobonds. SmartStream is a market leading middle- and back-office solution provider with deep domain experience in developing solutions that drive down transaction processing costs. It aids in the management of regulatory burdens, provides robust operations infrastructure and improves operational transparency.

SmartStream awarded with SWIFTReady application label for TLM Corporate Actions

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:36:24 GMT

This award is amongst multiple awards for SmartStream’s TLM Corporate Actions product. The certified SWIFT messaging capabilities allow clients to process corporate actions information in line with global and specific national market practice requirements, whilst at the same time providing the flexibility to interpret and process custodian data with specific interpretations of message formatting.

Filip Versluys, Head of Partner Marketing, SWIFT, says: “We are pleased to award the SWIFTReady Application label to SmartStream for TLM Corporate Actions V10. SWIFT certifies selected applications that meet our strict standards and requirements. Clients will benefit from SmartStream’s expertise as well as from SWIFT’s services.”

TLM Corporate Actions supports the complete event lifecycle, providing a single scalable application that delivers control and accountability to all parties. A comprehensive, web-based solution that incorporates workflow-based steps to control and manage all user tasks and priorities in real time, TLM Corporate Actions helps to eliminate operational risk. It also minimises operational costs and significantly reduces exposure to financial losses prevalent in the manual processing environment.

Alan Jones, Head of Corporate Actions Product Management, SmartStream, states: “Every year we update the base configuration within TLM Corporate Actions to meet the SMPG & NMPG event interpretation grid updates to ensure that clients instantly benefit from SWIFT’s messaging updates. Following a rigorous and intensive testing period we are proud to have passed this stringent criteria, which further endorses our commitment to the industry and our clients. It is our goal to continue delivering proven technology to help our clients tackle the barriers to STP and maximise operational efficiencies associated with corporate actions processing.”

Tower Group 2012 report highlights the benefits of TLM Corporate Actions: “As one client put it, this solution saved them 4 hours of manual processing daily. SmartStream’s integration of TLM Corporate Actions with On Demand and reference data services has the potential to differentiate the solution among peers”.

SmartStream Partners with DTCC to Offer Seamless Integration of DTCC’s Global Corporate Actions Validation Service

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:31:47 GMT

GCA VS tracks, validates and distributes corporate actions information on more than 2.5 million securities globally in 200 countries.

The GCA VS corporate action data service has been fully tested within the SmartStream Quality Assurance test lab and together these systems provide clients with enhanced processing capabilities within their production environments. A number of existing GCA VS and SmartStream customers are already using the new integrated system.

Combining GCA VS's high quality data, published up to 15 times a day, with the automated processing capabilities of TLM Corporate Actions provides clients with early, validated event notifications that can be broadcast straight through to front office operations. It can also be used to reconcile custodian / broker notifications and process the entire event lifecycle while increasing efficiency and mitigating the risk associated with missing a corporate action event.

In addition to operational efficiencies delivered by TLM Corporate Actions, clients can further benefit from SmartStream Data Management Service to automatically compare GCA VS notifications with events sourced from custodians, brokers or from a client's third-party sources as a managed service.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO at SmartStream Technologies said: "We are very happy to have entered into this agreement with DTCC Solutions. The combination of our corporate actions solution and DTCC Solution's GCA Validation Service makes this a powerful tool for middle and back offices. The ease of use and accuracy alone will make a real difference in the way financial institutions conduct their corporate actions business and they will see the results of the realized efficiencies almost immediately."

"Heightened efficiency, timeliness and quality of information are some of the key benefits that come with these combined service offerings of DTCC Solutions and SmartStream Technologies," said Dan Thieke DTCC Vice President, Product Management. "Together with our partners, we will continue to work to provide an end-to-end processing solution for corporate actions."

SmartStream awarded multiple SWIFTReady 2012 labels for the fourth consecutive year

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:07:24 GMT

This is the fourth year in a row that SmartStream's TLM Corona was awarded the SWIFT accreditations in recognition of its SWIFT compliance with the E&I and Reconciliation SWIFTReady criteria. The award also demonstrates SmartStream’s on-going commitment to the SWIFT environment and the solution’s contribution to promoting industry standards for reconciliations and exception management.

SmartStream is the only vendor to be consistently awarded the SWIFT accreditation for reconciliations, exceptions and investigations in a single solution. This is critical as many banks look to deliver standardized control applications that function seamlessly among the transaction matching element and the identification, management and resolution of exception items. By rapidly repairing and resolving a failed payment or statement reconciliation and returning it to the transaction flow, firms can lower their cost-per-transaction.

Rudolph Schnepf, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: "We're very proud to have received the SWIFTReady labels for the fourth consecutive year, it further demonstrates our commitment to the TLM Corona solution suite and recognises that our market leading reconciliation solution enables our clients to continue to support their operations with the highest levels of service. SmartStream’s ability to meet the complex requirements of the payments industry ensures that our solutions remain functionally rich and highly configurable, whilst adhering to current SWIFT messaging standards."

SmartStream Technologies and Empaxis Partner to Provide Hedge Funds and Asset Managers with a Turn-key, Service Based Trade Reconciliation Platform

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 11:55:44 GMT

NEW YORK – June 19, 2012 – Empaxis, a leading provider of back-office outsourcing and trade reconciliation services, today announced that it has partnered with SmartStream Technologies, the financial transaction lifecycle management specialist, to offer a robust, service-based trade reconciliation platform for the buy-side.

The joint offering will provide a complete, turn-key technology and processing service for trade reconciliation and will target small and medium-sized hedge funds and asset managers, leveraging SmartStream’s industry-leading reconciliation and exception management platform to manage their middle- and back-office workflow.

Highlights of this partnership include:

Complete outsourced reconciliation and reporting service provides buy-side firms with a cost-effective way to manage growth and demonstrate best practice operational controls to investors
SmartStream best in class reconciliation and exception management combined with Empaxis reconciliation services capability delivers significant lifetime cost savings

Empaxis’ cost-effective back-office processing and reconciliation services provide buy-side firms with operational efficiency and rapid time to market through an on-demand and scalable service model, designed to cater specifically to the needs of asset managers, hedge funds and middle- and back-office buy-side technology providers. Empaxis’ solutions also support a full range of instrument types that are currently being used by investment managers.

"Industry research and our own analysis of our clients’ operations tell us that small and mid-tier buy-side firms are underserved when it comes to reconciliations. They struggle to scale their operations to handle asset and transaction growth while curbing costs; at the same time, they need to demonstrate to their investors that they have tight operational controls,” said Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream. “By working with Empaxis, we’re now able to offer the same platform used by the largest firms as a cost effective, turn-key back-office processing solution."

"We are delighted to be partnering with a company that has such a stellar reputation as SmartStream," said Stephen Van de Wetering, CEO of Empaxis. "This type of joint solution is a natural fit for Empaxis as we’ve developed a tremendously high level of expertise around supporting back-office technologies and delivering exceptional value to our clients."

Banque Cantonale Vaudoise Implements SmartStream's TLM Corona Universal Data Solution to Automate Complex Reconciliations

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:21:55 GMT

BCV, which was founded over 160 years ago to serve the people of Vaud, offers a full range of services, including personal, corporate and private banking as well as asset management. BCV is now Switzerland's second-largest cantonal bank, and one of the country's top five full-service banks.

Though BCV was already using SmartStream's TLM Corona solution for its cash and securities reconciliations and exception management, some of the bank's more complex reconciliations were being managed either semi-manually or on legacy systems. As transaction volumes continued to rise and significant processing bottlenecks grew, creating operational risk, BCV realised they needed to find a solution that could reduce risk and cost while providing greater control and visibility to its operations. After a review of their requirements, the bank selected SmartStream's Corona Universal Data solution.

One of BCV's key objectives for this project was to implement a solution that could be easily operated and configured in order to quickly adapt to any market or regulatory changes and client requests. Universal Data at BCV is now fully operational and the bank is completely independent and capable of setting up new reconciliations on its own.

Mr Aimé Achard, Member of the Executive Board with responsibility for the Business Support Division at BCV, said: "After using TLM Corona for our cash and securities reconciliations, we were confident that the Universal Data module would allow us to process more complex transactions. Since implementing the Universal Data module we have been able to improve our security by both increasing our reconciliation volumes and decreasing the number of tools used for it."

Jim Hannibal, Regional Sales Director at SmartStream Technologies added: "We are delighted to see that Banque Cantonale Vaudoise has chosen to continue to build on its existing Corona installation to reconcile the most complex securities transactions. TLM Corona provides the industry's leading reconciliation solution that will enable Banque Cantonale Vaudoise to continue to support its operations and deliver the highest level of service to its clients."

Kotak Mahindra Bank goes live with TLM Corona for automation of Nostro Reconciliations

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:00:00 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Kotak Mahindra Bank has gone live with TLM Corona Cash & Investigations to automate its nostro reconciliations and investigation processes in its treasury department. The solution will enable Kotak Mahindra Bank to increase operational efficiency while reducing operational costs and risk through the proactive detection of exceptions and enhanced transaction management.

Established in 1985, Kotak Mahindra Bank has over 350 branches across India and is one of the country’s fastest growing banks. To enable the bank to effectively manage an increasing number of transactions during this growth phase and beyond, the firm decided to look at ways to optimise straight through processing (STP) rates and minimise exceptions whilst reducing costs. To enable this, the bank selected SmartStream’s TLM Corona Cash & Investigations for managing nostro reconciliations and overcoming post trade processing issues being faced by their treasury department.

Ms. Aruna Rao, Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said: "As the bank continues to grow, we are continually looking at strategic ways to improve our processes whilst at the same time, containing costs. SmartStream’s TLM Corona has provided us with a solution that takes us one step closer to achieving our strategic goals of near 100% STP, zero error operations and increased productivity levels."

Pritesh Kotecha, Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and South Asia at SmartStream, added: "We are delighted that Kotak Mahindra Bank selected TLM Corona Cash & Investigations to manage the bank’s reconciliations and exception management processes. The implementation went extremely well and the bank is already seeing the benefits of increased automation. This is a perfect example of how financial institutions in growth markets such as India can utilise our solutions to gain efficiency and control over increasing transaction volumes whilst maintaining a low cost per transaction".

SmartStream named Leader in Innovation for Corporate Actions and Best Implementation Project for Colonial First State in 2011 Financial-i Awards

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:43:26 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Financial-i, a UK-based magazine focusing on strategy and technology in financial services, has selected SmartStream as the winner of two of their prestigious awards.

An independent panel of industry analysts from Aite, Celent and TowerGroup, as well as financial services specialists, named SmartStream as the ‘Leader in Innovation for Corporate Actions’ processing and awarded the TLM Trade Process Management implementation at Colonial First State as the ‘Best Implementation Project’.

The Best Implementation Project award was given in recognition of the successful implementation of SmartStream’s TLM Trade Process Management solution at Colonial First State (CFS), part of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia group. With TLM Trade Process Management in place, CFS now has a single processing platform that delivers a volume insensitive and instrument agnostic post trade environment. The new system supports the processing of trades across all asset classes, in all markets and in all currencies.

John Paull, Head of Investment Operations at CFS, commented: “I’m delighted that such an important project, which marking a major transformation for CFS’ business, has been recognised for its innovation and results. Re-engineering a set of disparate processes onto a single, cross-asset platform, TLM Trade Process Management, was a significant undertaking for the firm but one that has yielded impressive results. We now have a standardised approach to the management of trade processing, which has lowered IT risk by reducing the number of systems, addressing several outstanding compliance issues and increasing security. Operational and on-going business costs have also reduced, while revenues have increased through the reduction of human error costs.”

In winning the Corporate Actions award, SmartStream was judged to have continued to extend the capabilities within TLM and to have driven automation through proactive monitoring and predictive technology, as well as through the recently launched Event Management On Demand service.

Alan Jones, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: “I’m delighted that TLM Corporate Actions has won the Financial-i innovation award, reflecting the ongoing work by the team behind the solution to lower processing costs and reduce risk inherent in the corporate actions process. We are extremely proud of the full end-to-end processing capabilities of TLM Corporate Actions but remain mindful that certain clients have very specific automation requirements. One way to deliver those precise elements is through service-based offerings, which is why we recently launched our SaaS Event Management solution. It offers proven capabilities for displaying all critical dates and any actions required to manage that event on behalf of client, but through a flexible delivery method that is attractive to small and mid-tier firms due to its lower total cost of ownership.”

TLM Corporate Actions named Best Corporate Actions Product at 2011 Banking Technology Awards

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:02:18 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that its TLM Corporate Actions solution has won the Banking Technology magazine readers choice award for Best Corporate Actions Product 2011.

The awards, now in their twelfth year, were chosen by Banking Technology's readership of more than 9,000 industry practitioners. SmartStream’s TLM Corporate Actions was selected due to its innovative approach to event processing and its ability to automate much of the corporate actions process through proactive monitoring and predictive technology. These innovations include the recently launched Event Management On Demand solution that offers automated population of events and the display of all critical dates and actions required to manage those events on behalf of clients, all as a hosted service.

David Bannister, Editor of Banking Technology, explained: “The readers of Banking Technology voted for SmartStream as the leading Corporate Actions provider for 2011. It’s clear that at a time when risk is firmly in the spotlight, the event management process is still and area of concern for firms. The ability of solutions, such as TLM Corporate Actions, to leverage message standards and automate this complex process can deliver real value to these organisations.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream Technologies, commented: “This latest award, as voted for by readers of one of the industry’s leading publications, highlights the significant operational benefits SmartStream’s solutions can deliver. TLM Corporate Actions ability to reduce operational and reputational risk by ensuring that critical event dates are not missed is paramount in this economic climate. We see high levels of interest from firms globally who continue to struggle with processing inefficiencies and increasing pressures from client, market and regulatory demands. TLM Corporate Actions is leading the way to address these demands and proving to be one of the most functionally rich, easy to use and efficient corporate actions solutions available today.”

TLM Reconciliations-Premium named Best Reconciliation Platform and Best Overall Product at 2011 Buy-Side Technology Awards

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:38:23 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, announced today that TLM Reconciliations-Premium has been named “Best Reconciliation Platform/Service” and “Best Overall Buy-Side Product” for 2011 by Waters and Buy-Side Technology.

The annual awards honour the achievements of firms that service asset and hedge fund managers and are selected from a shortlist assembled and judged by a panel consisting of top editors, consultants and analysts. The “Best Reconciliation Platform/Service” category, introduced in 2010, was awarded to SmartStream for the second year in a row, partly in recognition of the success of TLM Reconciliations-Premium, and its significant client gains globally.

The judging panel also recognised TLM Reconciliations-Premium's ability to process a wide variety of instruments as well as the product’s continued and substantial evolution of its functionality, such as the new Exchange Traded Derivatives (ETD) processing capabilities. It is for these reasons as well as TLM Reconciliations-Premium’s industry leading transaction processing capabilities and its ongoing success at buy-side firms that the panel also awarded the solution the “Best Overall Buy-Side Product”, the magazine’s highest honour.

Victor Anderson, Editor of Waters, commented: “We introduced the Best Reconciliations Platform category two years ago as transaction automation and post-trade processing in the buy-side was being pushed up the agenda. Our panel have voted for SmartStream as the best Platform both years, recognising TLM Reconciliations-Premium’s continued success at buy-side firms. The Best Overall Product award reflects SmartStream’s continued ability to automate transaction processing across multiple instrument types and support the drive for greater middle and back office efficiency.”

David Penney, EVP Strategy and Product Management, SmartStream, said: “I’m delighted that Buy-Side Technology has awarded SmartStream 'Best Reconciliations Platform' for our TLM Reconciliations-Premium solution for the second year in a row. The fact this award exists highlights the extent to which the spotlight has fallen on the post-trade space and the pressures firms are under. Recognising those pressures, including regulation, cost, back office efficiency and total cost ownership, we developed an entirely new product to deliver a single transaction-processing platform across multiple instrument types. The success to date of TLM Reconciliations-Premium across buy-side firms is testament to its ability to efficiently process high transaction volumes at some of the industry’s most demanding firms. Its flexibility has also been a contributing factor to its success, as it was designed with multiple delivery options, enabling firms to access the solution in the manner that best suited their particular organisation.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, added: “The award for ‘Best Overall Buy-Side Product’ reflects the significant and ongoing investment that SmartStream has made in the solution to ensure it continues to evolve and meet the transaction processing requirements of buy-side firms globally. Today TLM Reconciliations-Premium is being used by buy-side firms as an on premise solution, through a BPO service and through the SaaS delivery model.”

SmartStream announces TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand delivering enhanced event automation as a service

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:46:32 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the launch of a new service, TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand, delivering enhanced event management through the Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand delivers the proven event management capabilities of SmartStream’s TLM Corporate Actions solution as a secure, resilient and fully managed service. Designed to meet the automation requirements of small to mid-sized firms, the service eliminates manual event data processing and recording of critical dates, whilst lowering the Total Cost of Ownership for an automated event management solution.

Through its integrated diary-based approach, the service provides an online database of all events that affect client portfolios. The automated population of the event diary displays all critical dates and any actions required to manage the event lifecycle on behalf of clients.

TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand takes in the client’s feed sources to create a single, rationalised event master or Golden Record. This information, in conjunction with custodian / prime broker specific deadline dates, is used to drive workflow processes that automatically populate and update the service’s integrated diary. The diary also monitors and displays all exceptions and tasks raised against each event providing a prioritised list of activities to the user in real-time.

This supports firms to mitigate the risk of missing critical deadlines and enables the qualification of custodian event notices. Further, the service can be pre-populated with event data from SmartStream’s Managed Data Services or the firm’s data vendor of choice.

As a result, the TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand service enables organisations to lower the Total Cost of Ownership for an automated event management solution, while at the same time improving its risk reporting and client reporting capabilities.

Alan Jones, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: “The launch of this new on demand service comes at a time when many small to mid-sized firms are wrestling with how to increase their automation of the event management process whilst also reducing their operational costs. This new service offers the rapid and secure delivery of events against the securities of interest that must be managed on a client’s behalf. It removes the cost and resource implications of managing an automated solution in house, providing proven automation and event management capabilities.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, added: “TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand is SmartStream’s latest innovation and an integral part of our approach to helping clients’ drive down their operational costs without compromising the tools used for automating critical back office processes.”

SmartStream Data Management Services expansion continues with appointment of industry veteran Hugh Stewart

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:46:24 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the appointment of Hugh Stewart as Sales Director for its SmartStream Data Management Services business.

Stewart joins SmartStream with more than 30 years of sales and management experience in the global financial services and technology industries, most recently as SVP of sales, EMEA and Asia at enterprise data management (EDM) vendor GoldenSource. Prior to that role, he served as a shareholder and director of Pelican Consulting Ltd., an investment and commercial banking consultancy and advisory company focused on risk management, derivatives and commercial lending. Hugh has also held management positions at, among others, QuIC Financial Technologies, a provider of derivatives pricing and risk analytics software, risk management vendor, Algorithmics and Bankers Trust.

At SmartStream, Stewart will be managing teams based in the US, UK and APAC tasked with evolving utility and reference data services being offered to Investment Banks, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, Brokers and other financial services companies. These services include SmartStream's established customised reference data service that includes extensive coverage of futures and options plus Symbology Cross Referencing (SCR), Financial Data Dictionary and Instrument Cleaning Services with a comprehensive global market opening calendar. These will be offered alongside new enhancements such as Corporate Actions cleansing, and Counterparty, Legal Entity and Hierarchy Management.

Commenting on his new role, Stewart said: “The regulatory developments occurring throughout 2011 and beyond as well as the strong drivers for operational integrity and economic efficiency are forcing firms to re-examine how they manage their reference data. Furthermore, with the quality of data governance becoming a critical success factor for client retention and development, banks and asset management companies are looking to re-position and standardise systems and processes that currently consume vast amounts of time, effort and money. SmartStream's customised data services offer a compelling solution and a new business architecture by providing institutions with enhanced reference data management through shared, standardised delivery of commoditised functions. As a result they deliver significant risk mitigation and reduce operational overheads, while boosting data quality and accuracy."

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, added: “Hugh brings proven expertise in data management and has demonstrated skill in creating and growing successful sales operations. He will enable us to continue DClear’s success and expand the services into new areas, supporting firms as they look to meet new data management requirements.”

SmartStream Reference Data Services gain significant momentum a year on from their launch

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:43:38 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced significant progress for its Data Management Services, a year after its launch. With reference data on the agenda again at this year’s Sibos conference, a service model providing clean, consistent reference data as a service has come to the fore as the industry wrestles with data quality and its impact on risk management.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, said: “We believe that by looking to address the issue of reference data in the market and its impact on the transaction lifecycle as a whole and not on an institution by institution basis will have a lasting impact and deliver significant benefits to market participants."

A year on from its launch the SmartStream Data Management Services, including securities cross referencing and a data dictionary have gained considerable traction in the markets. It has delivered significant project milestones including mapping more than 3.5 million security identifiers, equating to just over half of all the know identifiers and approximately 350 Exchanges. As a result of this development work, SmartStream now delivers a Central Data Hub hosting a shared common source of reference data available to banks, custodians, broker/dealers, money managers.

One client, a leading US-based Asset Manager, is using the SmartStream service to manage securities cross referencing, lowering its trade breaks and strengthening its risk controls. A spokesperson for the firm said: “Prior to SmartStream a major trading group in the UK were primarily maintaining the matching manually between the web sites, Reuters, and Bloomberg. This approach caused delay and limitation on the volumes, loosing precious times in trading. With SmartStream we eliminate all the internal jobs and automate all of the matching; allowing the traders focus on their core competency of trading.”

“In the US, SmartStream has enabled us to perform order routing automation internally. Previously the information was sent to the Prime Broker to execute the trade. We would need to staff up a group of dedicated experts on a 24x6 bases to map the disparate data coming in via multiple sources to a centralised location. By outsourcing this to SmartStream we are able to reduce our resource cost while still getting the product we need.”

David Penney, EVP Strategy and Product Development at SmartStream, commented: “Reference data accounts for almost half of trade failures, resulting in billions of dollars lost in opportunity. Reference data is costly to acquire and maintain, duplicative across the industry and of no strategic value. SmartStream Data Management Services remove that significant cost overhead and provides firms with superior quality reference data as the basis for their daily operations.”