Regulatory Alignment

SmartStream enables its clients to respond to industry regulations, ensuring they have the necessary risk controls in place to assist with compliance rules.

By collaborating with SmartStream we are able to offer a comprehensive offering via our Hub, which meets all regulatory requirements; and processes are simplified, resulting in lower overall administrative costs for our users.

Deutsche Börse Group

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Solution
Regulation
AICPA SOC for Service Organisation

SOC for service organisations are internal control reports. They provide valuable information allowing users to assess and address the risk associated with an outsourced service. SmartStream has completed SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 attestation.

AIFMD

High quality reference data and the ability to accurately evaluate exposure to asset types across the organisation is key to AIFMD. SmartStream’s reference data solution delivers complete, accurate and timely reference data for use in critical regulatory reporting and risk management operations. A simple and cost-effective source of data that you can rely on.

For financial organisations who need to manage their exposure by the size of their operations, SmartStream has a suite of solutions which can help with these processes such as client reporting and balance sheet substantiation.

Basel II

SmartStream facilitates the rapid onboarding of reconciliations to help institutions overcome the backlog of reconciliations resulting from regulatory initiatives.

Basel III

High quality reference data and the ability to accurately evaluate exposure to asset types across the organisation is key to Basel III. SmartStream’s reference data service delivers complete, accurate and timely reference data for use in critical regulatory reporting and risk management operations. A simple and cost-effective source of reference data that you can rely on.

BCBS 239

Excellent data governance is built upon strong foundations with a complete, accurate and timely security master. SmartStream’s reference data service provides a simple and cost-effective solution to source and maintain critical instrument reference data that you can build your strategy around.

SmartStream’s post trade processing solution manages transactions from trade inception through to settlement on a single platform. This supports a more efficient automated data aggregation model ensuring the accuracy and integrity of risk reporting. Meanwhile, SmartStream’s reconciliations solution facilitates the rapid onboarding of reconciliations to help institutions ensure completeness and overcome the backlog resulting from regulatory initiatives.

The BCBS 239 requires that data is collected and aggregated correctly for liquidity and operational risk and reporting. SmartStream’s cash and liquidity management solutions supports banks in reconciling all transaction and data types, making sure data used for risk management purpose is fully reconciled, so that informed liquidity funding and investment decisions are made.

BCBS 248

BCBS 248 requires banks to be able to measure and manage their liquidity across an intraday, 30 day and over a one year horizon. SmartStream’s cash and liquidity management solution delivers the tools to actively manage a bank’s liquidity as well as producing regulatory reports. Meanwhile, SmartStream’s reconciliations solution facilitates the rapid onboarding of reconciliations to help institutions overcome the backlog resulting from regulatory initiatives.

BS11

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has introduced a new regulatory requirement called BS11. It outlines the outsourcing policy for large banks in New Zealand whose net liability exceeds NZD 10 billion. BS11 is set to come into full effect from 1 October 2022.

SmartStream creates a business line to support the New Zealand banks via our cloud offerings by providing the technical infrastructure and hosting. For collateral management, the client must be able to operate the Collateral system independent of the whole group. The New Zealand operations need to be able to load, review and process information pertaining only to the New Zealand operations in the case of a separation event. Under the BS11 requirement, the New Zealand arm of the parent bank must be named in the contracts to have rights to utilise the softtware should a separation event be called by the RBNZ. This applies to reconciliations and cash and liquidity management.

CSDR

The Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) forms part of wider EU regulatory reforms including EMIR and MiFID II. The aim is to harmonise certain aspects of the settlement cycle and settlement discipline and provide a set of common requirements for CSDs operating securities settlement systems across the EU.

CSDR plays a pivotal role in post trade harmonisation efforts in the EU as it will enhance the legal and operational conditions for cross border settlement. At the operational level of securities settlement, CSDR includes the provision of shorter settlement cycles, mandatory buy-ins, and cash penalties to prevent and address settlement failures. In order to comply with CSDR, SmartStream’s reconciliations and exceptions management solutions applies necessary measures to prevent breaks from occurring, as CDS participants must reconcile their records daily with the information received. SmartStream’s Reference Data Utility also offers a systematic internaliser registry service, which helps to fulfil reporting requirements.

Dodd-Frank

A key requirement in the Dodd-Frank Act is the reconciliation of OTC derivatives. In response, SmartStream delivers pre-built reconciliations solutions and workflow management which manages the trade and its process legs across the entire lifecycle.

SmartStream’s collateral management supports the evolving requirements arising from Dodd-Frank. All firms can benefit from its portfolio management, reconciliation, dispute workflow, reporting, limit and threshold monitoring, as well as its ability to classify counterparties and product types in order to manage the margining of cleared and bilateral transactions.

DORA

The Digital Operations Resiliency Act (DORA) requires financial entities and providers to establish rigorous protocols to manage and mitigate risks to their ICT systems and services. SmartStream supports this by providing robust tools for risk assessment, real-time monitoring, and incident management, ensuring that customers’ operations meet stringent resilience standards.

ECMS

The Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS) is a unified system for managing assets used as collateral in Eurosystem credit operations. Together with the other TARGET services that the Eurosystem offers – the ECMS will ensure that cash, securities and collateral flow freely across Europe. SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions support clients in the complexity of ISO20022 Securities message structures.

EMIR Refit

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has recently updated regulatory and implementation technical standards concerning reporting. These new regulations are set to become effective in the EU on 29th April 2024, while the UK EMIR Refit will be introduced in the UK on 30th September 2024.

A key requirement for the EMIR Refit programme is the reconciliation of OTC derivatives. In response, SmartStream provides pre-built reconciliations solutions and workflow management, overseeing the trade and its process legs throughout the entire lifecycle.

SmartStream’s collateral management solution supports the evolving requirements stemming from EMIR. All firms can benefit from its portfolio management, reconciliation, dispute workflow, reporting, limit and threshold monitoring, as well as its ability to classify counterparties and product types in order to manage the margining of cleared and bilateral transactions.

With many of the new reportable fields introduced by EMIR Refit focusing on commodities and energy, obtaining the necessary reference data presents a challenge. SmartStream’s reference data, a managed service, ensures the provision of comprehensive, accurate, and timely reference data. This service proves to be a simple and cost-effective source of reference data that clients in the UK and EU can rely on for critical regulatory reporting and risk management operations.

Fatca

SmartStream’s corporate actions facilitates a Financial Institutions reporting tax obligations of global income received from corporate actions by US persons.

FINRA

The Trading Activity Fee (TAF) is a variable fee introduced by FINRA and is subject to rule flows which determine which activity is subject to the assessment and which activity is exempt. The rule flows are fully implemented in SmartStream’s fees and expense management platforms with each transaction evaluated against the assessment criteria and exemptions documented for audit purposes.

IFRS 17

The standard requires companies to provide a reconciliation of the opening and closing balances of their insurance contract liabilities, including details on the changes in the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement. SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions provide greater transparency and comparability in the reporting of insurance contract liabilities. Companies will need to provide the reconciliation in the year of adoption.

IOSCO

SmartStream’s collateral management solution has been designed to handle the new business practices arising out of IOSCO Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) Phase 1-6, such as Central and Client Clearing, Group Thresholds, support for net and gross initial and variation margins, currency-based margining, mismatch haircuts, wrong-way risk and asset concentration management, rehypothecation tracking plus flexible interfaces that can be configured as regulations and best practices evolve.

ISO 20022 Principle

On 01 July 2021, the ECB Market Infrastructure Board directed that there needs to be a full-fledged implementation of the ISO 20022 message format by November 2022, with no further pursuit of a ‘like-for-like’ fallback solution. SmartStream is ready to support its customers with these transformational market changes, and its next generation reconciliations solutions natively supports the complexity of ISO 20022 message structures to their fullest.

KYC/AML

Know Your Customer and related Anti Money Laundry regulations continue to put a tight grip on businesses. In particular prepaid card issuers and co-brand issuers need to document that the end customer has passed all checks. The same applies for remittance processors, P2P payment/lending platform providers, and effectively any player that ‘touches’ consumer payments and funds transfers. SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions enables issuers to detect issues as well as to resolve them in an automated, controlled and audited way.

MIF

The EU-wide MIF-regulation imposes a ceiling limit of 0.3 percent on credit-card interchange receivable by the credit card issuer (down from approx. 1.0 percent). Industry-experts predict an overall drop in issuers’ revenues of up to 50 percent, as a consequence issuers will need to streamline and control their processing operations and related cost-base. SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions helps issuers automate all control processes thereby taking out a large part of the traditional manual cost as well as mitigating operational risks and losses.

MiFID II and MiFIR

MiFID II and MiFIR transparency obligations require access to significant quantities of reference data for each financial product that is traded in Europe. SmartStream’s reference data provides all of the reference data that you need for pre-trade price transparency, post-trade reporting and transaction reporting in a simple to use form either as a file or through a set of APIs. The RDU will determine ToTV, interact with ANNA DSB, reconcile ESMA, ANNA and CFI classifications and return all of the reference data that you need.

SmartStream’s reference data solution for is the most complete record of Systematic Internaliser (SI) services, essential to determine the MIFID II status of any chosen counterparty. This unique data set is sourced from the SIs themselves in collaboration with the Approved Publication Arrangements (APA) community and offers a listing of the financial instruments and asset classes for which the SIs are providing SI services.

MiFID II and MiFIR extend current regulations, with greater controls and governance across all instrument types traded on behalf of clients, as investment intermediaries, and the organised trading of financial instruments. The new, wider set of mandatory data to be validated and reported is just one of the more testing regulations impacting Central Counterparties, trading venues and clearing members that SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions can resolve.

PCI-DSS

The PCI Security Standards Council’s mission is to enhance global payment account data security by developing standards and supporting services that drive education, awareness, and effective implementation by stakeholders – supporting the needs of the global payments industry. SmartStream’s reconciliations platform and OnDemand (SaaS) services using its flagship reconciliations solutions and AI technologies are certified at the highest level of security standards.

PSD II

The Payment Services Directive (PSD) II is targeted towards payment initiation services and access to account services (XS2A). Typical use cases request proof that the user has access to the account they want a direct debit payment to be drawn from. Additionally, any post-pay provider and lender can read the user’s account history and make analysis on account movements and balances for reasons of risk management and scoring – making application processes seamless, and increasing customer conversion. SmartStream’s reconciliations solutions provide the necessary tool to reconcile and monitor processes and transactional content, whilst tracking exceptions and process breaks.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Section 31 is a fee assessed by the SEC to SROs and national securities exchanges to recover the costs of supervising and regulating markets and securities professionals. SmartStream has fully implemented support for the automated calculation, accounting, billing and collection, and payment for fees and expense management platforms.

SFTR

The European Union (EU) Securities Financing Transaction Regulation (SFTR) aims to bring transparency to the securities financing markets by requiring both parties to an SFT to report new, modified or terminated SFTs to a registered trade repository. Each SFT trade report must include specific details about the security being traded and SmartStream’s reference data simplifies the sourcing of the essential security reference data required to enrich each SFT report.

Shareholder Rights Directive II (SRD II)

The role of shareholder voting is now central to the investor communications chain and shareholder voting needs to be fast, accurate and transparent. SmartStream’s Corporate Actions solution meets the SRD II requirements by delivering automation and proactive controls to support intermediaries and its participants.

Solvency II

High quality reference data and the ability to accurately evaluate exposure to asset types across the organisation is key to Solvency II. SmartStream’s reference data is a managed service that delivers complete, accurate and timely reference data for use in critical regulatory reporting and risk management operations. A simple and cost-effective source of reference data that you can rely on.

Solvency II requires firms providing insurance to prove the quality and accuracy of the data being used by their internal models. This has a knock-on effect throughout the firm as internal departments are required to change processes, structures and systems to ensure transparency throughout the entire data lifecycle. SmartStream’s reference data services provide high quality and fully audited data to assist firms in preparing correctly for Solvency II.

T+1 Trade Settlement

The adoption of amendments by the SEC to the Exchange Act Rule 15c6-1 in the US will shorten the trade settlement cycle for most securities transactions to trade date plus one business day (T+1). The T+1 framework will affect organisations across the financial services sector – both in and outside the US – the compliance date is set for May 28, 2024. The regulation encompasses a wide variety of financial products – SmartStream has been at the forefront of innovation and has an impressive track record of deploying Corporate Actions, Collateral Management, Cash and Liquidity Management, Reconciliations, Reference Data solutions for clients globally – is ideally positioned to help firms meet the challenges of T+1 settlement.