SmartStream - Press Releases

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.”

SmartStream launches Data Dictionary Utility

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:39:23 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the availability of the SmartStream Data Dictionary, a new service providing a structured information portal for all exchange and data provider documentation.

The Data Dictionary is part of the SmartStream Reference Data Service, available as a standalone solution for firms looking to standardise, quantify and accelerate the translation of documentation. It simplifies the process of integrating new data providers and feeds into the client’s environment and improves data quality by reviewing, researching and verifying vendor feed documentation to ensure complete accuracy.

As a result, the SmartStream Data Dictionary eases the pain of intricate documentation analysis by organising the information in logical categories, and making them viewable through a web interface. It also enables firms to lower costs by removing the need for dedicated in house teams that update and refine the data definitions.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, commented: “The cost of building and maintaining a data dictionary internally requires a substantial investment in resources, both in terms of capital and time. It also creates a significant operational overhead due to the ongoing upkeep required to collate, verify and maintain the data definitions. SmartStream's service-based approach removes this cost and uncertainty around staffing by ensuring definition information is always available, with clients only paying when they need to use the information. As a result, firms not only receive better quality data and achieve their global coverage requirements but do so at a fraction of the cost compared to managing it internally.”

SmartStream launches Data Management Services to lower the cost-per-trade through shared data and trade processing services

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:35:08 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the launch of it Data Management Services, a new division providing shared data and trade processing utilities for the financial services community.

These Services will deliver centralised processing of financial instruments across their entire lifecycle through an on demand style platform, enabling clients to benefit from a shared service centre model for common processing services. By consolidating functions such as confirmations matching, order/trade matching and position management into a single entity, SmartStream's Data Management Services will deliver greater transaction visibility, lowering operational risk and reducing the cost-per-trade.

The SmartStream Reference Data Management Service is the first such utility to be launched and has already signed its first customer, based in the United States. It will aggregate, reconcile and monitor the agreed aspects of clients’ reference data at an individual data field level, providing integration and cleansing of data sources, with rules-based processing providing integrity checks on all incoming data. As a result the utility will ensure fewer trade breaks by providing clean and consistent data, integrated across all assets, entities and instructions.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream Technologies, commented: “In the current financial market of decreasing margins and volume volatility, the need to reduce transaction costs through more efficient back office processes that reduce trade breaks and increase risk controls has become even more urgent. We see that pressure is driving the trend towards the standardisation of systems and processes that offer no strategic differentiation yet consume vast amounts of time, effort and money. The model based around the shared, standardised delivery of commoditised functions for back office processing and a centralised repository of standardised data delivers significant risk mitigation and reduces operational cost. SmartStream's Data Management Services can create a network effect by demonstrating to all market participants that using the same reference data and reconciliation and exception management processes will significantly reduce risk and cost. By taking a co-operative approach among market participants to solve a common problem these Utilities deliver the economies of scale that benefit all participants, initially for reference data and then for more generic back office processing.”

TLM Corporate Actions praised for its innovation and processing capabilities in 2011 B.I.S.S. Accreditation

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:06:44 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that its TLM Corporate Actions solution has achieved the 2011 B.I.S.S. industry accreditation.

The benchmark tests organised by B.I.S.S. Research and set by an industry panel, revealed SmartStream’s innovative approach to event processing across the entire corporate actions lifecycle. The associated report, published by B.I.S.S. Research, highlighted the significant and ongoing development of TLM Corporate Actions and the flexible design of its account structures.

Based on an extensive examination of TLM Corporate Actions the report praised the solution for its quality, and noted its modular approach, enabling it to support SaaS-based processing services. The first of these, TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand, was recently launched at the Sibos conference in Toronto.

Gary Wright, CEO, B.I.S.S. Research and creator of the B.I.S.S. Accreditation, said: “We congratulate SmartStream on an exceptional performance in this year’s industry benchmark tests and on receiving the B.I.S.S. Accreditation. TLM Corporate Actions joins a select few corporate action systems that genuinely supports corporate action processing throughout the lifecycle and is capable of being deployed in all market sectors. The SaaS possibilities that this design offers is particularly interesting as so many tier two and three financial services firms are looking to move away from legacy software systems and SmartStream has clearly observed this market opportunity. SmartStream has designed a terrific corporate actions system that has real differential from other systems in the market giving financial services firms’ real choice.”

David Penney, EVP Strategy and Product Management at SmartStream, commented: “The 2011 B.I.S.S. Accreditation is a significant achievement, reflecting the considerable work and creativity from the SmartStream team to continually push the TLM Corporate Actions solution forward to meet evolving client, market and regulatory demands. TLM Corporate Actions is leading the way to address these pressures and is proving to be one of the most functionally rich, easy to use and efficient corporate actions solutions available today. We also see 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.

That is why we have announced a SaaS-based version of TLM Corporate Actions that 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 a solution in house, providing proven automation and event management capabilities. It represents our latest innovation in the corporate actions arena and is an integral part of our approach to helping clients drive down their operational costs without compromising on the quality of the tools used for automating critical back office processes.”

SmartStream launches TLM Reconciliations-Premium for sell-side ETD processing, secures leading investment bank as first client

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:55:44 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced it has extended its TLM Reconciliations-Premium solution for Exchange Traded Derivatives (ETDs) to meet the processing requirements of sell-side organisations.

ETDs represent a significant processing issue for the sell-side due to the number and type of data sources, including Brokers, Clearing Houses and Exchanges that must be managed. This has been compounded by rising volumes that are likely to increase as more transactions are executed through exchanges as a result of regulatory reform to the OTC markets.

To address the challenge of seamlessly integrating and managing these dynamic sources, the SmartStream solution delivers full maintenance of the external feed handling process for more than 30 global Exchanges, Brokers and Clearing Houses. Leading professional services firm Syntel has been selected as the preferred implementation partner, working alongside SmartStream to deliver and support the solution to meet the specific requirements of each individual sell-side client.

Rated by Celent as the most functionally rich solution of the market, TLM Reconciliations-Premium is designed specifically to manage the high volumes that sell-side participants are experiencing through its workflow-driven approach to transaction processing. Available as a standalone solution, or within a broader TLM Reconciliations-Premium deployment, it delivers automation across the ETD lifecycle, ensuring every element of the transaction can be represented, tracked, managed and reported. The solution provides sell-side firms with a single view into transaction positions, trades and cash, whilst allowing users to drill down into the individual item detail for each of the parts.

As a result of the automation delivered by the solution, firms can reduce costs due to fewer exception items and the removal of manual intervention through repeatable, scalable and fully auditable processes. A London-based Investment bank has signed as the solution’s first client, to ensure more efficient tracking and reporting on every underlying element of its derivative transactions, from initial trade, position and margining to close out.

Rudolf Schnepf, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, said: “ETD transactions represent a significant processing issue for many institutions today due to the use of proprietary standards and multiple data feeds that sell-side firms must manage. An increasing emphasis on risk management, coupled with higher levels of volatility and the steady evolution to exchange-execution for many derivative types makes enhanced automation a must. This new TLM Reconciliations-Premium solution is designed specifically to meet the needs of sell-side firms. It uses TLM’s proven event workflow and exception management to ensure trading data is accurate, charges are being levied in accordance with agreed commission schedules, and collateral requirements are being correctly applied.”

SmartStream TLM Corona awarded multiple SWIFTReady 2011 labels

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:57:44 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that its TLM Corona version 7 solution has been awarded the SWIFTReady Reconciliations and SWIFTReady Payments Exceptions and Investigations labels for 2011.

TLM Corona was awarded the SWIFT accreditations in recognition of its SWIFT compliance with the E&I and Reconciliation SWIFTReady criteria, its integration with the SWIFT environment and the solution’s contribution to creating more efficient payments exceptions management. The award also demonstrates SmartStream’s ongoing commitment towards adopting and promoting industry standards for reconciliations and exception management.

SmartStream is the only vendor to be SWIFT accredited for both its reconciliations and its exceptions and investigations in a single solution. This is critical as many banks look to deliver standardised control applications that function seamlessly between 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: “The SWIFTReady awards are further evidence of our innovation and product excellence in the reconciliations space. It reflects the continued investment SmartStream makes in its TLM solutions, enabling firms to reduce their cost-per-transaction while at the same time managing increased volume volatility across a range of instruments.”

Commenting on the accreditation Filip Versluys, Head of Partner Management at SWIFT said: “We are delighted that SmartStream continues to work with SWIFT to drive the market forward for the benefit of our mutual customers. TLM Corona is an example of SmartStream continuing to offer a standards-based approach to automating reconciliations and related payment investigations processes to reduce risk and cost. The SWIFTReady accreditation now gives institutions even greater assurances that TLM Corona version 7 adheres to specific SWIFT criteria to deliver a complete, integrated business solution.”

SmartStream supports regulatory reporting and storage requirements with new solution for archiving historic transaction data

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:55:02 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the launch of TLM Archive, a new tool that delivers long-term storage and retrieval of transaction data to aid regulatory reporting requirements.

The efficient management of transaction data has been an issue for many firms as regulators increase the time that historical data must be stored for, in some cases up to 15 years. As a result, the volume of data that accumulates over that period of time can be huge.

Keeping that historic data within the active production database for a long period of time increases costs as data volumes increase and affects system performance. The response times for on-line searches by users will also deteriorate as the search functions and the underlying database need to sort through much larger volumes of data.

Recognising these significant issues, SmartStream has developed TLM Archive, a new solution that removes historic data from the production system. It delivers an archiving and retrieval tool that works with all TLM business modules, enabling the efficient long-term storage of transactions once their business lifecycle has completed.

Historic data is removed from the active database, indexed and stored in TLM Archive, allowing authorised users to perform inquiries and access related information such as investigations on specific data records, even if it dates back several years. However while it can easily be retrieved for regulatory reporting and point in time snapshots it cannot be amended nor re-activated by users, helping to ensure full compliance with regulatory requirements.

David Penney, EVP Strategy and Product Development at SmartStream, commented: “Generally firms have been faced with two options for storing their historical data; external storage or a second instance of the production database into which data is transferred after processing. However both are fundamentally flawed approaches, increasing operational costs and complexity. External storage is expensive and inefficient, requiring manual intervention to retrieve data when needed and second instance database needs to be upgraded in line with the production system.

TLM Archive is a compelling alternative that can deliver a rapid ROI. It provides users with rapid access to historic transaction data, reducing the time required to conduct investigations, whilst improving the performance and response times on the active database. It saves time and money by eliminating the delays involved in retrieving data held on storage media in off-site warehouses. The overall effect is an improvement in exception management and customer service. Users can view their data in a secure environment and inquiries can be executed on both active and archived transactions, giving them all the information they need to make informed decisions.”

SmartStream delivers greater efficiency to the derivatives market with TLM Transaction Fees Invoice Management solution

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:05:16 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the launch of TLM Transaction Fees Invoice Management that removes complexity through an automated solution that manages all aspects of transaction fees, from exchange through to brokerage fees, more effectively.

Transaction fees and related invoice reconciliation are a highly fragmented and manual process, creating significant control and processing inefficiencies and introducing additional risk and cost to all participants.

Bringing its significant experience in transaction reconciliations, SmartStream has developed TLM Transaction Fees Invoice Management to provide an independent, automated solution for banks, brokers and Inter Dealer Brokers to manage their brokerage fees and invoicing. For the first time the invoices for all transaction types, be they Exchange Executed or Over-the-Counter (OTC), can be managed through one solution delivered either on premise or as a service.

Robert Drew, a derivatives infrastructure specialist, commented: “In my experience firms globally struggle with highly manual and fragmented invoice management processes that, in the current market conditions create unnecessary risk and cost. Solutions such as SmartStream’s TLM Transaction Fees Invoice Management should enable industry participants to both accelerate and enhance the entire invoicing, payables and receivable process through a best practices approach.”

As a result of its automated approach, TLM Transaction Fees Invoice Management improves efficiency by enabling a more flexible and integrated fees management capability, integrated in with industry initiatives such as eGains, GPS and eGus. Disputed transactions can also be managed and resolved through an online collaborative tool. This collaborative approach ensures more efficient dispute resolution that removes delays in the process, lowering costs and risk, thereby bringing in more control.

It offers the ability for fees to be checked immediately after a trade is booked and up to month end before the invoice is produced instead of after the invoice are issued.

Anne Pounds, Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: “Market fragmentation along with disparate operational approaches within financial institutions created huge inefficiencies. In discussing derivatives processing issues with clients and prospects, many acknowledged that their existing approaches for dealing with invoices were inefficient and lacked an effective methodology. It was also apparent that any form of streamlined dispute resolution processes would benefit their organisation.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO of SmartStream, added: “As the leader in reconciliation and exception management we are pleased to be responding to market requirements through our innovative software. With some of the most far-reaching regulatory initiatives affecting the derivatives markets over the next few years, firms are looking to adapt and in some cases overhaul their business processes to support the new structures and rules being put in place. From reconciling transactions, whether they are Exchange Executed or Over-the-Counter derivative trades through to transaction fee invoices and the underlying reference data that defines transaction quality, SmartStream offers a range of complementary and industry-leading solutions throughout the derivative lifecycle.”

BBVA Finanziamento selects TLM Reconciliations to support new Portuguese retail card programme

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:39:11 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that BBVA Finanziamento, part of the Spanish BBVA Group, has selected TLM Reconciliations to manage its internal transaction records.

BBVA Finanziamento is the Portuguese subsidiary of BBVA Finanzia, designing and developing financing strategies in collaboration with manufacturers and distributors to increase sales and customer loyalty. To launch a new loyalty card programme for a Portuguese retail chain, BBVA Finanziamento required a solution that could efficiently manage high transaction volumes.

The bank selected TLM Reconciliations as it delivered the highest automated match rates between BBVA Finanziamento’s internal database records, significantly lowering the risk and cost of managing the loyalty card project. BBVA Finanziamento was also impressed by the solution’s generic reconciliation capabilities, enabling it to efficiently expand the loyalty scheme and manage higher volumes in the future.

Sacur Mamede, CFO at BBVA Finanziamento, said: “BBVA Finanziamento has built a strong reputation for designing and delivering successful programmes tailored to each of our client’s specific needs. An essential element of any of these projects is ensuring the accurate and efficient management of transaction data, particularly with schemes such as this one that will generate a high transaction volume. By selecting TLM Reconciliations we can improve risk control for the latest project, retail loyalty cards, without the need for additional back office resources. Its generic approach and scalability also offers us the flexibility to extend the programme and effectively manage data generated by any additional commercial agreements within a single solution.”

Christian Schiebl, Executive Vice President, SmartStream Technologies, commented: “I am delighted that BBVA has selected TLM Reconciliations to deliver its latest project. It highlights, once again, the strength of TLM Reconciliations’ design; providing scalability and the highest automated match rates in the industry to deliver cost-efficient and effective operations. With TLM Reconciliations at the heart of the transaction processing, BBVA can help its clients deliver a successful loyalty card programme.”

EastNets to offer TLM OnDemand across Middle East, North Africa and United States

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:39:10 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced a new partnership with EastNets, a leading provider of global compliance and payments solutions and services, and one of the world’s largest SWIFT Service Bureaus.

EastNets, which has more than 1,000 customers and over 250 financial institutions on its Service Bureau, will act as a distributor for TLM OnDemand, offering SmartStream’s SaaS solution to its clients in the Middle East and US. The reconciliations service is a natural extension to the firm’s already established Service Bureau and offers EastNets’ clients additional strategies to control risk and cost in their business.

SmartStream’s TLM OnDemand service was designed to provide small to medium-sized firms with affordable and rapid access to the same technology that is already deployed at many of the world’s leading institutions. EastNets has significant expertise in partnering with this target market, offering both service-based and on-premise solutions. In addition to delivering SmartStream’s SaaS reconciliation offering, EastNets will also distribute SmartStream’s suite of TLM and Corona solutions.

This is the first distribution agreement for TLM OnDemand and will enable EastNets to offer rapid on-boarding and transaction based pricing for the market-leading reconciliations solutions.

Hazem Mulhim, CEO, EastNets, said: ‘We’re delighted with this agreement and believe it’s a positive step forward for ourselves and most importantly our customers. EastNets is a trusted provider of services and solutions to our clients and it’s important that we continue to evaluate and assess the market to identify the best solutions. It’s clear that SmartStream’s solutions and services have an unrivalled ability to reduce risk and cost for financial institutions. By partnering to extend their latest OnDemand reconciliations service into our bureau whilst also enabling us to resell their on-premise solutions we can offer clients complete flexibility in how they choose to access these market-leading products. I am confident this partnership will benefit our clients and drive EastNets' continued growth not only across the Middle East but into our expanding US operations.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO, SmartStream Technologies, commented: “EastNets’ growing client base is seeking to invest in services that have an immediate impact on reducing their operating cost and risk. We have designed our TLM OnDemand service to specifically meet these needs by offering our market-leading reconciliations solution through a cost-effective SaaS model. For those organisations that have held back from automating their back office, or replacing legacy systems that cannot cope with today’s business demands, it delivers the same solution used by Tier 1 firms but with a lower upfront investment and reduced ongoing operational costs.”

Alastair McGill, EVP, Business Development & Alliances at SmartStream Technologies, added: “This is an exciting partnership; by integrating the OnDemand reconciliations service into EastNets bureau we’re offering an unbeatable Total Cost of Ownership for EastNets clients. For no upfront license fees, their clients will now be able to access market leading reconciliations technology on a per transaction pricing model. I know both our organisations believe that the combination of EastNets’ market knowledge and geographic coverage combined with SmartStream’s market leading solutions will drive significant success and client benefits.”

EastNets and SmartStream will be holding a series of workshops over the next few months to explain to firms across the Middle East region and the US how they can take advantage of the partnership.

SWIFT and SmartStream partner to reduce TCO

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:39:10 GMT

SWIFT and SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, have partnered to enable financial institutions to communicate with SmartStream’s TLM OnDemand reconciliation service via SWIFT.

Existing SWIFT customers can reuse their SWIFT infrastructure to use SmartStream’s service, reducing transaction breaks, operational risk and time to process transactions, while maximising their return on investment and minimising total cost of ownership (TCO).

TLM OnDemand is SmartStream’s Software as a Service (SaaS) offering for reconciliations. Its subscription-based approach requires no upfront expenditure on software licences and a rapid on-boarding process delivers a live service in a matter of weeks.

This non-exclusive partnership is a strong example of the kind of collaboration between key providers of solutions, services and connectivity that will ensure SaaS delivers financial institutions a true step-change in the performance and efficiency of their core operational processes. SWIFT will forge similar partnerships with other providers of SaaS solutions where there is a clear benefit to the SWIFT community.

SaaS enables financial institutions to access software solutions in a cost-effective way, eliminating the burden and cost of in-house management and maintenance of applications and giving firms flexibility and agility in the way they deploy software.

TLM OnDemand’s transaction-based pricing model offers a low-cost route for investment managers and banks to access a market-leading reconciliation solution. It enables SWIFT customers to automate their reconciliations to cost-effectively reduce transaction breaks, driving down their cost per transaction and minimising operational risk. The SWIFT network provides the highest levels of security and reliability, and enables standardised communication with TLM OnDemand.

Philippe Chambadal, CEO, SmartStream Technologies, said: “The partnership with SWIFT brings the market-leading reconciliations solution to the entire market, offering unbeatable value to firms that have yet to automate a business critical function. It delivers clear benefits for clients; the integrated service makes on-boarding as simple as possible, providing a higher automated throughput of transactions and lower break rates. The single subscription fee means customers of the joint service will not be charged for the SWIFT messages consumed.”

Chris Church, global head of securities at SWIFT, said: “The combination of SWIFT and SmartStream’s TLM OnDemand will help firms to simplify the transaction process, deliver increased STP rates and drive down TCO."

Bank Espirito Santo Angola selects SmartStream to automate reconciliations

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:39:10 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Bank Espirito Santo Angola (BESA), part of the Portuguese Bank Espirito Santo (BES) group, has selected TLM Corona for cash and intraday reconciliations.

BESA is an award-winning bank delivering financial products and services to the Angolan market, with a focus on private and corporate clients. The bank has built a strong reputation for providing banking services to firms operating in Angola, one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.

Payments reconciliations and positions were being managed using basic tools and as transaction volumes continued to rise they created a significant processing bottleneck. This led Banco Espirito Santo Angola to examine solutions that could reduce risk and cost while providing greater control and scalability to BESA’s operations.

The BES Group was familiar with SmartStream’s reconciliation capabilities as it already used the TLM Corona solution in Portugal. After a review of BESA’s requirements, it selected TLM Corona to automate the bank’s cash and intraday reconciliations, cash positions, and investigations.

Katila Santos, Operations Manager at Bank Espirito Santo Angola, explained: “With a highly successful business we were seeing a large increase in transaction volumes and our existing tools to support reconciliations were starting to cause processing problems. We pride ourselves on providing the best possible service to customers and so looked for a solution that could provide greater automation and scalability while also delivering improved visibility into our cash positions. By implementing TLM Corona we can significantly improve risk control and ensure our back office is more efficient enabling us to reduce operational costs. It will also support improved customer service as we can quickly see where exceptions have occurred and fix the issue to ensure the correct payments are made.”

Christian Schiebl, Executive Vice President, SmartStream Technologies, commented: “I am delighted that BES has selected SmartStream to deliver greater automation to its rapidly expanding Angolan operations. SmartStream and BES have built a strong relationship and this latest announcement is testament to the high quality work we have done within its Portuguese operation. BESA is a successful bank delivering services in a dynamic market and they recognised that manual processes could no longer support their rapid business growth. With TLM Corona providing high automated match rates and investigation tools into failed transactions, BESA can reduce its risk and costs while also supporting improvements in customer service.”

SmartStream expands relationship with Syscom into China

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:39:10 GMT

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that it has expanded its relationship with existing partner Syscom to sell the full suite of SmartStream’s TLM solutions throughout China.

Syscom, a Taiwanese company, provides advanced software applications and solutions to the Chinese financial services sector. It also delivers specialised professional consulting, testing services and technical support to clients including the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Bank of China, China Merchant Bank and Guandong Development Bank. Its existing partnership with SmartStream has been expanded from Taiwan to now also cover China.

James Liu, General Manager at Syscom, said: “Syscom has proven experience in the financial services sector across China. The relationship with SmartStream has already proven to be a success in Taiwan and this is a great opportunity for us to offer TLM solutions across the rest of the region. China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world and many organisations are looking to automate their existing manual processes to cope with this growth. We look forward to offering our clients access to solutions that provide more cost-effective, efficient and compliant operations.”

Mike Walsh, Channel Partners Director, Asia Pacific, SmartStream Technologies, said: “Since we signed the partnership with Syscom in Taiwan, our relationship with them has gone from strength to strength. As Syscom has grown its operations and expanded its business in China it makes sense to also extend our successful relationship with them to help bring our proven solutions to a dynamic and rapidly evolving market. I am delighted that we can continue to work with Syscom and utilise their market expertise to offer our range of TLM solutions to firms across China as automation moves further up their agenda.”

SmartStream named "Best Corporate Actions Vendor" for fourth year in a row at 2011 Inside Reference Data Awards

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:22:32 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that it has been named "Best Corporate Actions Vendor" at the 2011 Inside Reference Data awards, held in New York at the end of May.

SmartStream was recognised for its on-going innovation within its TLM Corporate Actions solution and in winning becomes the first vendor in the Awards history to win the same honour for four consecutive years.

The awards, now in their ninth year, recognise industry excellence within the market data, reference data and enterprise data management sectors. Candidates were selected and short-listed by the editorial staff at Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data, with the winners chosen by their readership, representing operations professionals at investment banks, securities firms, institutional investors, brokers and exchanges globally.

These industry experts and end users selected SmartStream as Inside Reference Data’s Best Corporate Actions Vendor for 2011.

Alan Jones, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: “Winning this award for the fourth year in a row is a significant achievement. We are seeing high levels of interest from firms globally who are still struggling with processing inefficiencies and legacy systems that are creaking under the increased pressure of client, market and regulatory demands. With growing volumes and the increased complexity of notifications, the automation of event processing remains critical and has increased in importance. TLM Corporate Actions is proving to be one of the most functionally rich corporate actions solutions available today. It also offers integration with our broader suite of TLM solutions that we believe offers unparalleled ability to create more proactive middle and back office operations, reducing operational risk and lowering costs. It’s therefore gratifying that industry practitioners voted for us to win this award for a fourth consecutive year.”

Bank of Hangzhou goes live on TLM Trade Finance to support rapid expansion in the international trade market

Tue, 10 May 2011 12:12:48 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Bank of Hangzhou has gone live on TLM Trade Finance to manage its international settlement business and foreign exchange clearing.

Bank of Hangzhou is focusing on expanding international trade finance as a key component of its development strategy. International settlements at the firm have grown rapidly from $2.7 billion in 2009 to $4.5 billion in 2010, an increase of 67%. As a result of such rapid development, Bank of Hangzhou realised that its existing international settlement system could no longer meet its processing requirements.

After examining the market for potential solutions, Bank of Hangzhou selected SmartStream’s local partner Brilliance Technology to provide a new system, TLM Trade Finance. The project was rapidly completed and within five months the TLM solution was processing international settlements and FX clearing. In the first quarter of 2011, the system has already enabled Bank of Hangzhou to process international settlements worth in excess of $1.45 billion.

Mr Sai Xuejun, Vice President of International Business at Bank of Hangzhou, commented: “We are delighted with this project delivered by Brilliance, in particular the perfect migration of nearly ten years of historical data from our old system. TLM Trade Finance has benefitted us greatly in terms of enriching our international settlement products, enhancing our clearing system and automating the clearing process. It has reduced error rates, increased our efficiency, lowered operation risk and costs, and, critically, helped us to improve our customer service.”

Mr Zhang YanSheng, Executive President, Brilliance, added: “We are seeing an increasing number of city commercial banks looking to standardise their operations and streamline their workflows as a result of business development and expansion. Bank of Hangzhou is the latest of a number of customers we have worked with to implement SmartStream’s TLM Trade Finance and I look forward to the partnership continuing as the Chinese market goes from strength to strength”.

Christian Schiebl, Executive Vice President, SmartStream, commented: “We are delighted that Bank of Hangzhou selected TLM Trade Finance for this project. SmartStream’s TLM Trade Finance enables them to reduce risk and cost by automating all the routine banking processes involved in international settlement. The project implementation involved many new business features as well as a challenging migration of historical data. Brilliance has done a fantastic job in supporting Bank of Hangzhou throughout the project to ensure a rapid time to market for the new platform and support Bank of Hangzhou's business objectives."

RBI automates payments exceptions and investigations with SmartStream's TLM Corona SWIFT E&I solution

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:10:20 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has gone live with SmartStream’s TLM Corona SWIFT E&I solution, lowering exception processing costs and improving customer service across its payments operations.

RBI operates one of the largest banking networks in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe. RBI, a long standing SmartStream client, is also the first Austrian bank to implement SWIFT E&I, the SWIFT initiative to automate payment exceptions and investigations.

To support this project the bank selected SmartStream’s TLM Corona SWIFT E&I solution, to create an integrated reconciliations and payments exception management platform at its shared service centre in Vienna. The solution will support RBI to reduce exception processing costs and improve customer satisfaction through shorter turnaround times for investigations and more comprehensive responses to inquiries.

Walfried Lemerz, Head of RBG & Infrastructures at RBI, commented: “For RBI, being an early adopter of SWIFT E&I gives us a competitive advantage. When it came to choosing a solution to support our objectives, it was clear that extending our existing TLM Corona reconciliations platform would provide the fastest time to market for this important project. We have developed a successful relationship with SmartStream over many years and wanted to continue that with this project.

Besides laying the foundations for future growth and scalability in our business it also ensures rapid responses to payment exceptions enquiries. With the solution in place, client cases are now handled in a more accurate and timely manner. The benefits of greater automation, such as reduction in processing costs and efficiency gains will multiply as more of our correspondent banks begin to use SWIFT E&I.”

Christian Schiebl, Executive Vice President at SmartStream, added: “Having a strategic partnership with RBI for many years we are delighted that the organisation has once again turned to SmartStream to support its latest infrastructure project. The bank has built a significant expertise in TLM Corona and extending this for payments exceptions and investigation with SWIFT E&I has delivered a successful new project.”

SmartStream announces new Account Reconciliation solution and partners with Genpact for full BPaaS offering

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:41:10 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced the launch of a new General Ledger (GL) account reconciliation solution for enterprises, bringing unparalleled levels of visibility and control whilst shortening the financial close process.

Many large organisations are looking at ways to further automate the management of their financial close by eradicating the challenges of highly manual and decentralised processes. In particular, there is a need to accelerate the flow of consolidated, verified information, to improve operational efficiency and to eliminate the risk of errors leading to restatement.

Based on the industry-leading and award winning TLM Reconciliations-Premium, the new TLM Account Reconciliation solution replaces manual and fragmented processes with a fully automated, workflow-based approach. It removes the re-keying of data that presents potential for human error, increases cost and lacks proper operational controls demanded by regulatory authorities.

As a result, SmartStream’s TLM Account Reconciliation solution creates a unified, automated platform for account reconciliation and balance sheet substantiation that provides enhanced transparency to financial controllers. It delivers significant cost reductions through the retirement of multiple legacy systems and spreadsheets, while also reducing the resources required to perform the financial close in a shorter period of time.

At a time when time to market and total cost of ownership (TCO) are critical, SmartStream is partnering with global business process and technology management specialist Genpact to offer the new solution on a comprehensive business process as a service (BPaaS) basis. Genpact has a unique heritage, beginning as a business unit with GE that has contributed to its extensive understanding of the account sign-off and financial close process. This insight has enabled Genpact to manage over 3,000 back office processes for more than 400 clients globally, making it a global leader in finance and accounting (F&A) process management including order-to-cash and record-to-report operations.

Genpact is ideally placed to offer the new solution to organisations, having used TLM reconciliations for many years to manage its own account close processes. The firm is working with SmartStream to configure the new account reconciliations solution and it will act as the preferred implementation partner, as well as offer the solution as BPaaS for enterprises around the world.

“Genpact is wrapping its expertise in streamlining end-to-end F&A processes around a flexible technology platform to make our clients’ financial closing operations even more effective,” said ‘Tiger’ Tyagarajan, COO, Genpact. “This partnership with SmartStream will strengthen our BPaaS offerings, enabling us to deliver best-in-class processes that are quick to implement and require little upfront investment.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO, SmartStream, “Genpact has a deep understanding of the account reconciliation and GL requirements of corporates, while SmartStream has the core reconciliation expertise and a solution that manages billions of transactions for financial services firms globally. By collaborating we can offer the combined skills and knowledge to deliver significant efficiencies to corporates who currently struggle with their financial close processes. The new solution, whether delivered on premise or as a BPaaS offering will deliver more controlled, efficient and transparent account reconciliation processing.”

SmartStream wins Asian Banker "Technology Implementation of the Year" award for TLM Trade Process Management at Colonial First State

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:24:29 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that it has won the Asian Banker Technology Implementation award for Best Trading System Middle Office project.

The 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. CFS is a leading investment manager with more than AU$180 (£113) billion in assets under management.

At a time when risk is firmly in the spotlight, the implementation of TLM Trade Process Management has provided CFS with enhanced visibility into daily positions across the whole business. It has replaced a number of disparate systems, requiring manual intervention at various stages of the trade lifecycle that could no longer support the businesses growth.

With TLM Trade Process Management in place, CFS 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 all currencies. As a result, failed trades can be spotted earlier in their lifecycle, investigated and repaired more efficiently, reducing the potential of CFS incurring financial penalties.

Due to the scalable and flexible nature of TLM Trade Process Management, the solution supports further business growth through reduced time to market and improved client services capabilities. It will also enable CFS to develop new revenue streams such as boutique partnerships and increasing transaction volume without impacting system performance.

John Paull, Head of Investment Operations at CFS, commented: “I’m delighted that such an important project has been recognised by The Asian Banker awards panel for its success. It marked a major transformation for CFS and how we managed our trades across the enterprise; re-engineering all of our previously disparate transactions and instruments into a single, cross-asset platform that offered standardised management of trade processing.

The TLM Trade Process Management platform has lowered IT risk by reducing the number of systems, addressing several outstanding compliance issues and increasing security. The consolidation of systems and process has also reduced operational and on-going business costs, while revenues have increased through the reduction of human error costs. Throughout the project SmartStream used its experience of previous trade process automation projects to advise on industry best practices and implement that within the new platform.”

Philippe Chambadal, CEO at SmartStream, added: “Winning this award means a great deal to SmartStream as it was voted for by a panel of experts who looked at the merits of a number of IT implementations across the Asia Pacific region. The award is not only a reflection of the quality of our TLM Trade Process Management solution but, equally importantly, the quality of the SmartStream team that has worked with CFS to deliver it. The award is a testament to how closely the team worked with CFS to ensure the final solution met CFS’s needs and provided significant benefits to their business.”

The Asian Banker IT Implementation Awards Programme is in its fifth year and is one of the region’s most prestigious awards programmes, recognising IT implementation projects across 13 categories. This year, more than 50 financial institutions across 15 countries in the Asia Pacific region were evaluated. Data was collated, normalised and presented by a team of researchers to an international panel of judges, each of whom gave insights into the different aspects of IT Implementations as part of the evaluation process.

"With the improvement of accuracy of unit pricing and the efficiency of trades placed in the market, CFS' solution with SmartStream has helped improved the bank's brand and increase the revenues for the bank," added Christian Kapfer, Head of Asian Banker Research. "The solution provides the management with new standardised business processes for trade processing. This resulted in the ability to view daily positions across the whole business and supports the processing of trades across all asset classes, in all markets and currencies.”

A case study for the TLM Trade Process Management project at Colonial First State can be downloaded here

Augsburger Aktienbank automates nostro account processing with TLM Corona

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:40:04 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that German firm Augsburger Aktienbank (AAB) has implemented TLM Corona, automating its account and holdings reconciliation processes.

AAB, based in Augsburg, Bavaria, was the first branchless bank in Germany offering retail investment funds and services, and today it manages more than €8 billion in investments. As part of an IT overhaul that has included a new core banking system, AAB wanted to introduce a single platform capable of processing a variety of transaction types.

The firm selected TLM Corona’s Cash and Securities modules to manage transaction processes previously handled by a combination of the old core banking system and individual point solutions. The new solution, hosted at AAB’s parent company LVM Versicherung in Münster, is now live, processing the firm’s cash account and holdings reconciliations for both internal nostro and external accounts such as Clearstream.

Martin Dumbs, Head of Transaction Centre at AAB, commented: “The higher automation rate that we have achieved within the daily reconciliation using TLM Corona is a significant benefit. The system also offers a better documentation of already reconciled accounts so they can also be analysed retrospectively to ensure continuous process improvement. Another significant improvement is the ability to set up an unlimited number of partners within the nostro reconciliations processes, which supports the rapid growth of AAB and the expansion of the number of business relationships we have created.”

Christian Schiebl, Executive Vice President at SmartStream, added: “AAB is an innovative and highly successful firm that offers a wide range of services to retail customers. As a result of its continued expansion it has undergone a major IT transformation project and I’m delighted that it has selected TLM Corona as its reconciliation solution. AAB’s decision shows TLM Corona’s competitiveness in providing a strategic and flexible solution that will allow the institution to reduce costs and operational risks.”

TLM Corona awarded SWIFTReady accreditation for Exceptions and Investigations

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:40:04 GMT

SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that its TLM Corona solution has been awarded the 2010 SWIFTReady Exceptions and Investigations (E&I) accreditation.

This is the second year in a row that TLM Corona has been awarded the label and makes its unique, being the only solution that is SWIFTReady accredited for both payments Exceptions and Investigations, and Reconciliations. The SWIFT E&I initiative was created by SWIFT to enable firms to communicate in a standardised manner with other banks and corporates through XML-based messaging. As a result it removes the labour-intensive process of investigation payment failures, boosting STP and providing a faster resolution.

SmartStream’s TLM Corona SWIFT E&I solution provides banks and corporations with the capabilities they need to drive down the cost of payments processing. Fully compliant with the latest standards and rulebook, TLM Corona SWIFT E&I deploys out of the box to quickly deliver significant efficiency gains. Client’s of the TLM Corona E&I solution include Austrian financial services group RZB.

Rudolph Schnepf, Senior Product Manager at SmartStream, commented: “We are delighted to have gained the SWIFT E&I accreditation for a second year running, as it reinforces our ongoing commitment to providing the very best transaction processing solutions. The introduction of standardised, automated processes around payments exceptions and investigations it vital as it reduces risk supports more proactive customer service in what has traditionally been a manually intensive area of the back office. As firms look to remove risk and cost from their operations we have seen significant demand from across Europe and Asia for our SWIFT E&I solution. We are also in the unique position of offering this critical functionality as either a stand alone solution or as part of the wider TLM Corona suite, delivering a single solution for payments reconciliation, exception management and investigations across internal and external accounts.”