Quick Links
In the pressNews
November 2009: Message Automation wins another major investment banking client with derivatives matching capability.
Message Automation, together with its strategic partner company City Networks Ltd., is pleased to announce a major new business contract. After an exhasutive competitive evaluation process one of the world's pre-eminent investment banks has selected our world beating OTC derivatives suite to assist with control of its large population of trade data.
The overall solution, which utilises a wide range of Message Automation's technology, addresses all-field-matching for interbook and intercompany trades. Sourced from multiple trading applications, across all OTC derivatives asset classes, the solution requires complex data translation, content based decisioning and routing, deep structure matching, and human workflow.
March 2009: Message Automation comfirms the validity of its strategy to provide users with flexible rules-based routing for OTC Derivatives with the announcement of multiple competing central services
For full details of our thinking on new central coounterparties and clearing providers click here.
January 2009: Message Automation announces availability of complete suite of FpML validation rules for DTCC Deriv/SERV
Message Automation is pleased to announce the release of a comprehensive validation solution for connectivity to DTCC Deriv/SERV. Using our patented Validator product, Message Automation has configured the entire set of business rules issued by DTCC which define the OTC Derivatives trade characteristics which are acceptable. The package of rules is supplied with a full regression test pack with over 2,200 failure test conditions. The error messages are based on the DTCC's own description of the reasons for the break and reference their documentation.
The package can be used during internal development projects or in a production environment to reduce costly breaks in trade flow to and from Deriv/SERV. Message Automation has also committed to maintaining this package of rules for our customers as Deriv/SERV evolves in the coming months and years.
The new Deriv/SERV rules package is available to try online - you can submit a message yourself and see the results instantly from here
October 2008: Message Automation releases a single consolidated Rules Workbench for its suite of OTC post trade management products
Message Automation is pleased to announce the release of a consolidated user workbench across it entire product range. All of Message Automation’s products are rules-based providing user organisations with the ability to configure the products for their own specific requirements. The workbenches for Translator, Validator, Mediator and Director are now available as a single Eclipse based version, greatly simplifying installation and use.
September 2008: Tier one Investment Bank uses Message Automation's Validator to dramatically reduce the time taken to validate exotic derivative trades
A major tier-one investment bank has reduced the time it takes to validate exotic derivative trades from multiple hours down to 15 minutes per trade.
Complex, structured trades were captured by quant analysts in Excel, in full detail, and sent to the middle office. There, they were recorded again in a proprietary system in a more compact, parametric representation to produce term sheets for clients. A process was in place to ensure that the shortened trade tickets correctly represented the trade: this was a manual task involving comparison of print-outs and typically took around 3 hours of a highly skilled middle office professional’s time. In a project taking just weeks and utilising Message Automation’s rules-based validation solution they were able to reduce this process down to 15 minutes per trade. The solution eliminated a major constraint on trading activity as well as significantly reducing the risk of errors.
August 2008: ISDA announces the publication of the Recommendation for FpML Version 4.4.
The latest version of the Financial Products Markup Languaage (FpML) standard comprises a wide variety of changes and enhancements. These include the addition of a suite of messages for Commercial Lending, new support for Dispersion Variance Swaps and extended support for Variance Swaps. Brazilian Interest Rate Swaps form part of the new version, and a new set of validation rules for Foreign Exchange. Within Credit Derivatives, 4.4 sees additional support for European Loan CDS, and now caters for portfolio compression.
Of course, there are also the usual housekeeping changes, updates to the coding schemes, and general maintenance of the standard. As always, Message Automation has been involved with the various FpML working groups, and will continue to keep our products fully compliant, including maintenance of our rulesets. To discuss how FpML 4.4, or future versions may impact your business, please e-mail us at info@messageautomation.com
July 2008: Major European Bank selects Message Automation's Validator to enhance global internal messaging architecture
Message Automation is delighted to announce that another of Europe's largest banking organisations has selected Validator to enhance their internal XML based messaging architecture. The Bank, domiciled in Benelux but with a significant presence across Central and Eastern Europe selected Message Automation's software to validate their internal XML messages against business rules.
The global internal message standard extends well beyond OTC Derivatives and covers a wide range of financial transactions. During the evaluation period the Bank's own data architecture team configured and tested more than 2,000 business rules across a wide variety of message formats using Validator Workbench. The Bank anticipates that the use of Validator will accelerate the take-up of the new internal XML standard across the many local development teams, so improving data quality across the organisation globally.
May 2008: Message Automation's sponsors 5th Annual Glenview Consulting Charity Quiz Night
Message Automation joined Metia and COG Recruitment as sponsors of Glenview Consulting's annual quiz night. This year marked the fifth occasion that Glenview has hosted the quiz night, in aid the The Brigitte Trust. 14 teams from the finance and financial technology industries took part in fierce competition, but more importantly netted more than £5,000 for the very worthwhile cause. More details and results from the night here
March 2008: Message Automation's Dr. Christian Nentwich to appear on panel session at CORE08, the Credit Derivatives Operations and Risk Efficiency conference.
Message Automation's Strategy Director, Christian Nentwich will appear as a panel member at CORE '08, the leading Credit Derivatives Operations and Risk Efficiency conference. The conference is held on 13th March at One Great George Street in Westminster. The panel session is at 14.15. The subject will be:
Documentation – what and where are the key issues and challenges; does FPML have limits; and can complex products ever benefit from standardised templates?
We believe the subject is highly relevant as industry participants struggle to address the backlogs and inefficiencies in the OTC Derivatives arena. To attend the conference or find out more, Register here
January 2008: Message Automation hosts panel session at Finexpo City Technology Strategies
More than 60 industry practitioners attended Message Automation's panel discussion at Finexpo. The expo, held at The Brewery Chiswell Street, on 30th January 2008 was well attended and other exhibitors included fellow derivatives solution providers.
A number of recent market initiatives will impact the post trade landscape for OTC Derivatives in 2008. These include DTCC Trade Warehouse, CLS cashflow settlement, TriResolve portfolio reconciliation, Markit's acquisition of Swapswire. The panel provided their views on the likely impact of these. Questions focussed on the pressing issues of trade confrimation backlogs and the difficulties surrounding collateral management.
The highly experienced industry panel consisted of
January 2008: Three further implementations of Message Automation products go-live in major financial institutions.
Message Automation is delighted to announce that the fourth quarter of 2007 saw the successful completion of a further three projects to implement its derivatives processing software. The projects were each completed on time on budget in very rapid timescales.
One of these, at Fidelity Investments in the U.S.A. saw Message Automation's Translator and Validator products installed in tandem. The two products were implemented to assist Fidelity, one of the worlds largest investment managers, with its adoption of Financial Products Markup Language (FpML) for internal messaging. The entire project was completed in just 13 weeks.
Another project, at a major Swiss investment bank, was the first implementation of Validator for use in verifying complex trades. The Exotics & Hybrids Middle Office are now using Validator to check the consistency of trade capture for highly complex structured products against their own internal business rules.
The final success came at long standing customer RBS Financial Markets. The use of Translator was extended once again to cover linking to the Bank's new derivatives confirmation document generation application. The whole range of equity derivative products was covered by the project, where Translator was used to extract trades from the front office and create the internal standard XML messages for tranamission downstream.
November 2007: The Times shows University College London rising into the top ten unversities worldwide.
Message Automation holds the exclusive worldwide licence to exploit the patent underlying our Validator Software. The patent arose from research undertaken at UCL by Message Automation's Dr Christian Nentwich, and Professor Anthony Finkelstein, who represents the University on the company's Board.
The rankings are based on a number of criteria, and confirm UCL's research pedigree. Details in the The Times Online.
November 2007: B.I.S.Basle Semi-annual OTC derivatives statistics show continued strong growth in volumes and market values in first half of 2007
The Bank for International Settelments relased its semi-annual market statisitics report for OTC Derivatives. This showed year-on-year growth across all assets classes in both nominal outstandings and gross market value. Particularly strong areas were Equity Derivatives (up 66% from June '06) and Multi-name Credit Default Swaps (up 183%). The statistics refer to June 2007, even before the credit crunch saw volumes soaring again. The aggregate market value of OTCs was up to over $11 trillion. Full details here.October 2007: Message Automation enables banks to grow OTC derivatives revenue with launch of Proactive Derivatives
Details in the press release.July 2007: Message Automation to exhibit at SIBOS 2007 in Boston
Message Automation will be present at SIBOS 2007 - visit us on stand E39 to talk about your OTC Derivatives processing requirements.July 2007: City Networks to make strategic investment in OTC derivatives specialist Message Automation
City Networks announced today their intention to invest in Message Automation, the London-based derivatives processing specialist. The two companies have agreed terms for City Networks to acquire a significant minority stake in Message Automation. At the same time, both companies have signed a partnership agreement that enables City Networks to add extensive derivatives processing to their business solutions.Under this new partnership agreement, City Networks will be able to offer their 500+ global customers Message Automation's matching and reconciliation technology, which is based on FpML (Financial products Markup Language), the industry standard protocol for OTC derivatives products.
"Given the continued growth in the use of OTC derivatives and the fact that there is still a high level of manual processing involved", explains Richard Hill, City Networks' CEO, "most financial firms experience high error rates and remain exposed to significant risks and losses. Automating these complex trades is not easy and whilst we already had some capability in this area, we wanted to provide our customers with deeper functionality that supported all derivatives processing regardless of asset class. We are confident that with Message Automation's expertise in this area, our Proactive process management software will be positioned at the forefront of derivatives processing."
Commenting on the alliance, Hugh Daly, CEO of Message Automation said, "Our proven capabilities in the derivatives market provide a natural fit with City Networks' established and global customer base. The investment will allow us to grow our business to meet the demand we are encountering in the market. For many organisations, the OTC Derivatives post trade problem is a long way from being fixed and this is a powerful alliance which will go a long way to resolving this problem".
March 2007: Two more projects utilising Message Automation's Translator solution go live at The Royal Bank of Scotland
Translator, which has been in use at RBS for three years, is used to create FpML-based messages from a wide variety of asset classes traded by the RBS Equity Derivatives team. In the latest project to go live, Equity Linked Notes from the Structured Notes desk are taken from the front office system and published by Translator into their information hub using RBS.s own XML language (based on FpML). From the information hub, these trades are seamlessly passed downstream to back office (Calypso) and risk systems, positioning the bank for significant growth in this area during 2007.Translator helps RBS comply with the FSA.s Transaction Reporting System (TRS). On a scheduled daily basis, Translator interrogates RBS.s Equity Derivatives front office system and creates an extract file in XML format in line with the guidelines stipulated by the FSA. This XML document, combined with similar information from the other front office derivatives systems, is transmitted directly to the FSA enabling RBS to fully comply with the requirement, with minimum manual intervention, regardless of transaction volumes.
Both of these projects were completed without coding using Translator's graphical interface, which enables even complex FpML messages to be easily understood and mapped. When the rules change and new versions are published Translator can automatically update the schemas without losing the existing mapping or amending cumbersome scripts or XSLT, significantly reducing the maintenance overhead normally associated with upgrades.
January 2007: Message Automation to exhibit at FinExpo 2007
Details on the FinExpo web site.