Orc Software (SSE: ORC), the leading global provider of technology for advanced derivatives trading and connectivity, today announced that it has opened a new development center in Chicago, Illinois. The new development center adds to Orc’s extensive list of development centers located around the world including centers in major financial capitals such as London, New York, Toronto, Stockholm, Moscow, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
“Chicago is at the center of global derivatives trading and has one of the most talented and diverse workforces in the world, making it an ideal location for Orc Software to cultivate a strong development team,” said Rita Athas, executive director of World Business Chicago. “We are pleased to add Orc to an impressive group of tech companies that prosper in Chicago.”
“Chicago is a vibrant and growing market for us,” said Hugh Stables, VP of Engineering for Orc Software. “Opening a development center in Chicago will help us better serve the needs of our customers and expand our capability to develop world-class derivatives trading and connectivity solutions. In addition, with the wealth of knowledge and expertise in the Chicago region, we expect to find outstanding employees to join our team and make Orc Software even more successful.”
“This announcement is excellent news for our North American customers,” notes Steve Lukes, VP of Americas Sales for Orc Software. “Knowledge of local market requirements is key to our business. The Chicago Development Center will be instrumental in helping us continue to support the needs of our clients in the area.”
Orc Software’s Chicago Development Center will be responsible for developing solutions specifically for Orc’s growing North American client base. Orc Software’s development is currently spread across multiple offices around the world to ensure the best possible development of solutions suited to Orc’s global customer base. With over 260 employees, Orc is a global company with substantial local market expertise.
Orc Software’s Chicago Development Center will be located in expanded offices at 190 South LaSalle Street in Chicago’s Loop business district.
Monday, 31 March 2008
SmartStream Selected by Asset Manager
SmartStream Technologies, the Transaction Lifecycle Management specialist, today announced that one of the world’s leading Asset Managers has selected TLM® Reconciliations to create a global reconciliation solution.
The firm has a strong control-oriented culture and wanted to replace manual and semi-automated processes across its cash, securities and OTC derivatives reconciliations. TLM Reconciliations was selected to deliver a single solution across its global operations, enabling the firm to introduce more proactive back office processes. As a result, it can concentrate on resolving exceptions rather than managing the entire reconciliation processes, driving down operational risk and cost.
TLM Reconciliations was chosen for its unprecedented matching ability, allowing the firm to process every instrument type, from vanilla cash and stock transactions to more complex instruments such as OTC derivatives. TLM’s volume-insensitive design provides the firm with the scalability to process more and new types of instruments as the organisation grows.
Ease of deployment to a global workforce was also a decisive factor. TLM’s thin client user interface, TLM® WebConnect, removes the need to perform local upgrades in each location, enabling the firm to efficiently add new users through a browser.
Richard Cummings, UK Regional Director, SmartStream, said: “It’s clear that with higher trading volumes and ever more complex instruments, greater back office automation is critical to improving operational efficiency in today’s markets. We are delighted that this leading Asset Manager has selected TLM Reconciliations as the basis for a single reconciliations solution globally and recognised its ability to support its processing needs. This deal is testament to SmartStream’s global delivery capabilities, engaging with the client in each of its key markets to demonstrate TLM’s ability to meet their complex processing requirements. It highlights, once again, that TLM offers a proactive approach to effectively managing the transaction lifecycle, which enables firms to reduce both operational risk and cost.”
The firm has a strong control-oriented culture and wanted to replace manual and semi-automated processes across its cash, securities and OTC derivatives reconciliations. TLM Reconciliations was selected to deliver a single solution across its global operations, enabling the firm to introduce more proactive back office processes. As a result, it can concentrate on resolving exceptions rather than managing the entire reconciliation processes, driving down operational risk and cost.
TLM Reconciliations was chosen for its unprecedented matching ability, allowing the firm to process every instrument type, from vanilla cash and stock transactions to more complex instruments such as OTC derivatives. TLM’s volume-insensitive design provides the firm with the scalability to process more and new types of instruments as the organisation grows.
Ease of deployment to a global workforce was also a decisive factor. TLM’s thin client user interface, TLM® WebConnect, removes the need to perform local upgrades in each location, enabling the firm to efficiently add new users through a browser.
Richard Cummings, UK Regional Director, SmartStream, said: “It’s clear that with higher trading volumes and ever more complex instruments, greater back office automation is critical to improving operational efficiency in today’s markets. We are delighted that this leading Asset Manager has selected TLM Reconciliations as the basis for a single reconciliations solution globally and recognised its ability to support its processing needs. This deal is testament to SmartStream’s global delivery capabilities, engaging with the client in each of its key markets to demonstrate TLM’s ability to meet their complex processing requirements. It highlights, once again, that TLM offers a proactive approach to effectively managing the transaction lifecycle, which enables firms to reduce both operational risk and cost.”
CheckFree Account Certification
CheckFree, now part of Fiserv Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry, today launched CheckFree Account CertificationTM, an automated financial reporting control framework that assists organizations with implementation of a sound financial governance strategy and helps ensure compliance across multiple regulatory mandates.
Using configurable business rules that enforce financial period close policies and audit requirements, CheckFree Account CertificationTM helps enable organizations to automate the scheduling, preparation, review, approval, analysis and auditing of reconciliation information – information that is critical to the integrity of financial close and period-end reporting.
“Organizations increasingly have a lot at stake when it comes to regulatory compliance,” said Mark Cappell, senior vice president and general manager, Operational Risk Management, CheckFree, now part of Fiserv. “The cost of non-disclosure is high, and can lead to reduced shareholder value, loss of reputation, high audit fees and potential fines. In a recent review of material weaknesses disclosed under Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, 20 percent of weaknesses were related to failures in account reconciliations, review procedures or compliance with control policies. CheckFree’s holistic approach to control and compliance enables organizations to standardize business processes and embed risk management into their daily controls.”
Designed to seamlessly integrate with existing CheckFree Reconciliation and Exception Management solutions or function as a stand-alone solution, CheckFree Account CertificationTM helps enable organizations to:
• Assign ownership of reconciliation and certification activities
• Enforce reconciliation and financial reporting frequency policies
• Tightly control reporting review and escalation procedures
• Maintain proper segregation of duties
• Mitigate operational risk by focusing staff on higher risk accounts
• Promote and facilitate a ‘prove it’ approach to ensure confidence and streamline audits
• Reduce the cost of compliance and audit functions
“With the level of manual processes and spreadsheet utilization in practice today, many businesses are experiencing non-adherence to standard procedures, which can lead to internal fraud, irregular application of accounting principles, untimely reconciliation of financial data and unreliable financial reporting among other impacts,” said Andy Mellor, product manager, Operational Risk Management, CheckFree, now part of Fiserv. “It is increasingly clear that enterprise control and compliance applications, such as CheckFree Account Certification, play a key role in demonstrating effective governance of critical financial activities, and improving the timeliness and quality of financial processes and reporting – all of which underpin cross-compliance with multiple regulatory mandates and initiatives.”
Using configurable business rules that enforce financial period close policies and audit requirements, CheckFree Account CertificationTM helps enable organizations to automate the scheduling, preparation, review, approval, analysis and auditing of reconciliation information – information that is critical to the integrity of financial close and period-end reporting.
“Organizations increasingly have a lot at stake when it comes to regulatory compliance,” said Mark Cappell, senior vice president and general manager, Operational Risk Management, CheckFree, now part of Fiserv. “The cost of non-disclosure is high, and can lead to reduced shareholder value, loss of reputation, high audit fees and potential fines. In a recent review of material weaknesses disclosed under Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, 20 percent of weaknesses were related to failures in account reconciliations, review procedures or compliance with control policies. CheckFree’s holistic approach to control and compliance enables organizations to standardize business processes and embed risk management into their daily controls.”
Designed to seamlessly integrate with existing CheckFree Reconciliation and Exception Management solutions or function as a stand-alone solution, CheckFree Account CertificationTM helps enable organizations to:
• Assign ownership of reconciliation and certification activities
• Enforce reconciliation and financial reporting frequency policies
• Tightly control reporting review and escalation procedures
• Maintain proper segregation of duties
• Mitigate operational risk by focusing staff on higher risk accounts
• Promote and facilitate a ‘prove it’ approach to ensure confidence and streamline audits
• Reduce the cost of compliance and audit functions
“With the level of manual processes and spreadsheet utilization in practice today, many businesses are experiencing non-adherence to standard procedures, which can lead to internal fraud, irregular application of accounting principles, untimely reconciliation of financial data and unreliable financial reporting among other impacts,” said Andy Mellor, product manager, Operational Risk Management, CheckFree, now part of Fiserv. “It is increasingly clear that enterprise control and compliance applications, such as CheckFree Account Certification, play a key role in demonstrating effective governance of critical financial activities, and improving the timeliness and quality of financial processes and reporting – all of which underpin cross-compliance with multiple regulatory mandates and initiatives.”
VTB Bank Europe plc, has selected SONARIS/Bonds, the high-performance bond pricing engine from ORIMOS, a leading provider of front-office technology. VTB traders and sales benefit from the comprehensive functionality offered by SONARIS, ranging from pricing and real-time risk to market alerts and history charts for prices, yields and spreads.
George Niedringhaus, Managing Director, Head of VTB Europe's Fixed Income Sales and Trading, comments: "We needed to overhaul our trading capabilities quickly so we focused on the most capable off-the-shelf solutions in the market. Specifically, we needed a state-of-the-art pricing engine which would give our emerging market fixed income traders superior analytics and up-to-the-minute market awareness. After careful review, SONARIS came out on top and we are pleased with how responsive they have been with our requests for productivity-enhancing customization."
Chris Axton, Head of VTB IT, London, added: “Putting a system in place that fits our requirements, integrates with our infrastructure and simply runs with low operational overhead were our top priorities. SONARIS meets all of these needs.”
Guido Hagemann, CEO, ORIMOS, said: “We are extremely pleased that ORIMOS was the selected provider of pricing and analytics to VTB. This is our first Russian client and further expands our emerging market product usage and presence.”
George Niedringhaus, Managing Director, Head of VTB Europe's Fixed Income Sales and Trading, comments: "We needed to overhaul our trading capabilities quickly so we focused on the most capable off-the-shelf solutions in the market. Specifically, we needed a state-of-the-art pricing engine which would give our emerging market fixed income traders superior analytics and up-to-the-minute market awareness. After careful review, SONARIS came out on top and we are pleased with how responsive they have been with our requests for productivity-enhancing customization."
Chris Axton, Head of VTB IT, London, added: “Putting a system in place that fits our requirements, integrates with our infrastructure and simply runs with low operational overhead were our top priorities. SONARIS meets all of these needs.”
Guido Hagemann, CEO, ORIMOS, said: “We are extremely pleased that ORIMOS was the selected provider of pricing and analytics to VTB. This is our first Russian client and further expands our emerging market product usage and presence.”
FXMarketSpace Launches FXSettle
FXMarketSpace, the first centrally-cleared, global foreign exchange (FX) platform for the over the counter (OTC) market, today announced the launch of FXSettle, a ground breaking settlement solution that delivers advances in both the risk management and cost model for institutional FX transactions.
Live for the past two months, FXSettle is currently available through two global settlement banks, with another in the process of becoming live. This service benefits both their prime brokerage customers and their in-house trading over the FXMarketSpace platform. With the introduction of FXSettle, customers now have a choice in how they settle completed trades and have the potential to substantially cut settlement costs. FXSettle securely routes trades dealt on FXMarketSpace directly to the customer’s bank or agent for settlement, providing increased efficiency whilst guaranteeing against both settlement risk and replacement risk.
FXMarketSpace now provides its customers with:
• Broad access - enabled by CME Group’s Globex® API, over 100,000 Reuters FX desktops and a growing list if Independent Software Vendors
• Total transparency - where all prices are available to all participants
• Trading anonymity - through a central counterparty model that enables all customers to buy and sell without having their name disclosed
• Robust, scalable technology – that supports minimum latency and maximum order throughput
• Efficient settlement services - that minimise risk and reduce costs
Mark Robson, Chief Executive Officer, FXMarketSpace, said, “FXSettle provides the market with a secure, low cost settlement framework that enables further growth in the global FX markets. By building partnerships with CME Clearing and leading settlement banks, FXMarketSpace can now deliver this unique solution, providing customers with cost reductions whilst ensuring the highest level of protection against both replacement risk and settlement risk.”
Live for the past two months, FXSettle is currently available through two global settlement banks, with another in the process of becoming live. This service benefits both their prime brokerage customers and their in-house trading over the FXMarketSpace platform. With the introduction of FXSettle, customers now have a choice in how they settle completed trades and have the potential to substantially cut settlement costs. FXSettle securely routes trades dealt on FXMarketSpace directly to the customer’s bank or agent for settlement, providing increased efficiency whilst guaranteeing against both settlement risk and replacement risk.
FXMarketSpace now provides its customers with:
• Broad access - enabled by CME Group’s Globex® API, over 100,000 Reuters FX desktops and a growing list if Independent Software Vendors
• Total transparency - where all prices are available to all participants
• Trading anonymity - through a central counterparty model that enables all customers to buy and sell without having their name disclosed
• Robust, scalable technology – that supports minimum latency and maximum order throughput
• Efficient settlement services - that minimise risk and reduce costs
Mark Robson, Chief Executive Officer, FXMarketSpace, said, “FXSettle provides the market with a secure, low cost settlement framework that enables further growth in the global FX markets. By building partnerships with CME Clearing and leading settlement banks, FXMarketSpace can now deliver this unique solution, providing customers with cost reductions whilst ensuring the highest level of protection against both replacement risk and settlement risk.”
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Bank Of New York Mellon Awards
The Bank of New York Mellon has received first-place rankings in all major categories in Global Investor magazine's 2008 Foreign Exchange Survey, including Best FX Service Overall. Survey respondents represent a broad sampling of global asset managers and hedge funds. Results of this year's survey appear in the March issue of Global Investor.
The Bank of New York Mellon received an unprecedented 24 first-place rankings in this year's survey across all principal areas of FX service, including best FX service overall for real money and hedge fund investors; best research and trading in developed, Asia-Pacific and emerging markets; best FX strategy solutions; best sales coverage; best risk management; and best portfolio management technology.
"When we introduced ourselves as a new company last year, we asked the question, 'Who's helping you?'," said Jorge Rodriguez, managing director and head of global foreign exchange sales for The Bank of New York Mellon. "As this year's survey results indicate, we're redefining the notion of helping our clients. By successfully executing our integration plan, we're moving our business to entirely new levels of capability and performance."
Examples of FX product and service innovations introduced since the debut of The Bank of New York Mellon's Global Markets division last year include the daily distribution of currency research focused on new geographies, the development of a proprietary on-line hedging platform, and a significant expansion of trading activities involving frontier market currencies.
The Global Markets division encompasses The Bank of New York Mellon's foreign exchange, interest-rate and equity risk management businesses. Maintaining nine sales and trading desk locations around the world and active in more than 100 currency markets, Global Markets is a major presence in world financial centers and provides a full array of trading, research and e- commerce products to institutional fund managers, corporations and government entities throughout the world. Additional information is available at www.bnymellon.com/globalmarkets.
The Bank of New York Mellon received an unprecedented 24 first-place rankings in this year's survey across all principal areas of FX service, including best FX service overall for real money and hedge fund investors; best research and trading in developed, Asia-Pacific and emerging markets; best FX strategy solutions; best sales coverage; best risk management; and best portfolio management technology.
"When we introduced ourselves as a new company last year, we asked the question, 'Who's helping you?'," said Jorge Rodriguez, managing director and head of global foreign exchange sales for The Bank of New York Mellon. "As this year's survey results indicate, we're redefining the notion of helping our clients. By successfully executing our integration plan, we're moving our business to entirely new levels of capability and performance."
Examples of FX product and service innovations introduced since the debut of The Bank of New York Mellon's Global Markets division last year include the daily distribution of currency research focused on new geographies, the development of a proprietary on-line hedging platform, and a significant expansion of trading activities involving frontier market currencies.
The Global Markets division encompasses The Bank of New York Mellon's foreign exchange, interest-rate and equity risk management businesses. Maintaining nine sales and trading desk locations around the world and active in more than 100 currency markets, Global Markets is a major presence in world financial centers and provides a full array of trading, research and e- commerce products to institutional fund managers, corporations and government entities throughout the world. Additional information is available at www.bnymellon.com/globalmarkets.
LiquidityHub Ceases Trading
LiquidityHub Limited, established by a group of leading banks to aggregate liquidity and market data in support of electronic trading in the fixed income markets, today announced that it will cease electronic trading operations from close of business today.
The decision has been taken due to recent market conditions which have called into question the current scalability of the LiquidityHub model. Strategic options for the future of the Company are being evaluated.
The decision has been taken due to recent market conditions which have called into question the current scalability of the LiquidityHub model. Strategic options for the future of the Company are being evaluated.
Friday, 28 March 2008
Cyber Operations and Divine Capital
Cyber Operations, Inc. has entered into a strategic investment banking agreement with Divine Capital Markets of New York. Under the terms of the agreement, Divine Capital Markets will provide banking, consulting and merger and acquisition expertise to Cyber Operations. Together, Divine Capital and Cyber Operations will define for implementation an interlocked business, financial and capital strategy to leverage Cyber Operations’ growth opportunities. This strategy will incorporate both organic growth as well as synergistic merger and acquisition opportunities. Danielle Hughes, CEO of Divine Capital commented, “At Divine, we have an affinity for advanced technology opportunities. Cyber Operations software expertise and patent portfolio is well positioned for growth in the key sectors of Security Technology and Digital Media Networks. The investment community is looking for the next set of leading technology companies, and our mission is to bring those opportunities to market. We believe Cyber Operations represents that such opportunity.”
Cyber Operations CEO, Phil Ruggieri stated, “We have diligently and methodically searched for a strategic investment bank that understands both U.S. and international markets. Divine has a track record of expertise and success in helping companies build solid financial foundations, and in ensuring that growth opportunities are maximized. Dani Hughes and her team at Divine fit that model, and we are proud to be collaborating with them to deliver a strong future for Cyber Operations.”
Cyber Operations CEO, Phil Ruggieri stated, “We have diligently and methodically searched for a strategic investment bank that understands both U.S. and international markets. Divine has a track record of expertise and success in helping companies build solid financial foundations, and in ensuring that growth opportunities are maximized. Dani Hughes and her team at Divine fit that model, and we are proud to be collaborating with them to deliver a strong future for Cyber Operations.”
Quod ASOR Extended
Quod Financial, the leading provider of advanced execution technology for the global capital markets, today unveiled its solution for buy-side execution management. Capitalising on the experience and innovative technology of their established sell-side Advanced Smart-Order Router (Quod ASOR), Quod Financial empowers the buy-side by offering a new decision making and order routing technology.
As the European capital markets continue to change dramatically under MiFID, buy-side institutions aim to repatriate in-house the execution intelligence of the sell-side. This translates into having the technology which enables the buy-side to:
- Decide on the execution brokers based on dynamic analysis of quality and performance
- Dynamically decide on the type and quality of broker-based algorithms
- Build a smart-order routing capability to select the final exchanges, MTFs and dark pools. With the advent of liquidity decentralisation and the obsolescence of DMA, this is an increasingly necessary tool
Quod Financial's buy-side ASOR leverages its existing sell-side class technology and algorithms, and brings a new level of dynamic decision making and routing capability to the buy-side community. In addition, it provides the possibility to have a comprehensive multi-asset execution strategy which mirrors the cross-asset investment strategy.
"This is the next step in the evolution of the European capital markets," states Ali Pichvai, CEO and co-founder of Quod Financial.
"Having successfully gained momentum in the post-MiFID sell-side advanced smart order routing space, we have been invited by leading buy-side institutions to reutilise our technology to meet a number of challenges; implementing their complex execution strategies, proactively measuring the quality and performance of their brokers and their algorithms, as well as addressing liquidity fragmentation. We are confident we can meet this challenge, assisting our clients in gaining full independence."
Built on a low latency, high performance infrastructure, Quod ASOR's combination of algorithms and trading-specific Complex Event Processing (CEP) dynamically adjusts the execution pattern of an order against the client's individual best execution criteria. The ASOR is uniquely positioned to provide adaptive decision making and routing, and liquidity management. Quod ASOR is already live and proven with a number of leading international brokers, and is one of a number of advanced execution modules built upon the Quod Advanced Execution platform.
"Our underlying technologies have enabled us to create a smart-order router that is not only well adapted for the sell-side, but is now a viable solution for the buy-side. Our R&D effort continues to position us at the forefront of innovation in this fast-moving field", concludes Pichvai.
As the European capital markets continue to change dramatically under MiFID, buy-side institutions aim to repatriate in-house the execution intelligence of the sell-side. This translates into having the technology which enables the buy-side to:
- Decide on the execution brokers based on dynamic analysis of quality and performance
- Dynamically decide on the type and quality of broker-based algorithms
- Build a smart-order routing capability to select the final exchanges, MTFs and dark pools. With the advent of liquidity decentralisation and the obsolescence of DMA, this is an increasingly necessary tool
Quod Financial's buy-side ASOR leverages its existing sell-side class technology and algorithms, and brings a new level of dynamic decision making and routing capability to the buy-side community. In addition, it provides the possibility to have a comprehensive multi-asset execution strategy which mirrors the cross-asset investment strategy.
"This is the next step in the evolution of the European capital markets," states Ali Pichvai, CEO and co-founder of Quod Financial.
"Having successfully gained momentum in the post-MiFID sell-side advanced smart order routing space, we have been invited by leading buy-side institutions to reutilise our technology to meet a number of challenges; implementing their complex execution strategies, proactively measuring the quality and performance of their brokers and their algorithms, as well as addressing liquidity fragmentation. We are confident we can meet this challenge, assisting our clients in gaining full independence."
Built on a low latency, high performance infrastructure, Quod ASOR's combination of algorithms and trading-specific Complex Event Processing (CEP) dynamically adjusts the execution pattern of an order against the client's individual best execution criteria. The ASOR is uniquely positioned to provide adaptive decision making and routing, and liquidity management. Quod ASOR is already live and proven with a number of leading international brokers, and is one of a number of advanced execution modules built upon the Quod Advanced Execution platform.
"Our underlying technologies have enabled us to create a smart-order router that is not only well adapted for the sell-side, but is now a viable solution for the buy-side. Our R&D effort continues to position us at the forefront of innovation in this fast-moving field", concludes Pichvai.
ICAP Opens Indian Platform
ICAP (IAP.L), an international interdealer broker, announced today the launch of an electronic bond platform to service wholesale market participants in the Indian corporate debt sector. The platform was officially opened by Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram at a ceremony in Mumbai.
ICAP gained approval for an electronic broking system from the Securities Exchange Board of India in November 2007 and has since moved quickly to deliver a solution to the market.
Manish Sabharwal, CEO of ICAP India, said: “We are delighted to be in a position to extend ICAP’s proven global technologies to India’s corporate debt market participants and believe this will prove a major catalyst towards the SEBI’s goal of increasing liquidity and efficiencies in the burgeoning marketplace.”
Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s recent Union Budget highlighted measures important to the development of a robust domestic corporate bond market. These measures will enhance investment, benefit Indian companies, and improve the availability of finances for infrastructure development.
Commenting on the launch, Don McClumpha, Deputy CEO of ICAP Asia-Pacific, said: “The Indian markets are a key focus for our expansion across the region. ICAP will continue to invest and deliver the world’s leading technologies to OTC market participants to increase liquidity and further facilitate innovation.”
The market is expecting further reforms aimed at streamlining issuance procedures and boosting liquidity such as the borrowing/lending of securities. ICAP has successfully combined voice and electronic services in securities markets to enhance price discovery and trade opportunity for market participants and has built a strong position in repo markets globally.
ICAP gained approval for an electronic broking system from the Securities Exchange Board of India in November 2007 and has since moved quickly to deliver a solution to the market.
Manish Sabharwal, CEO of ICAP India, said: “We are delighted to be in a position to extend ICAP’s proven global technologies to India’s corporate debt market participants and believe this will prove a major catalyst towards the SEBI’s goal of increasing liquidity and efficiencies in the burgeoning marketplace.”
Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s recent Union Budget highlighted measures important to the development of a robust domestic corporate bond market. These measures will enhance investment, benefit Indian companies, and improve the availability of finances for infrastructure development.
Commenting on the launch, Don McClumpha, Deputy CEO of ICAP Asia-Pacific, said: “The Indian markets are a key focus for our expansion across the region. ICAP will continue to invest and deliver the world’s leading technologies to OTC market participants to increase liquidity and further facilitate innovation.”
The market is expecting further reforms aimed at streamlining issuance procedures and boosting liquidity such as the borrowing/lending of securities. ICAP has successfully combined voice and electronic services in securities markets to enhance price discovery and trade opportunity for market participants and has built a strong position in repo markets globally.
Secure Identity For Wyoming
Secure Identity Systems today announced it has been signed as the ID theft prevention service of choice for Wyoming Bank & Trust, a locally owned bank serving Laramie County, Wyoming. Effective immediately, Wyoming Bank & Trust will provide Secure Identity Systems’ recovery and education services free of charge to customers holding personal checking accounts, with the option to upgrade to the complete version at a discounted rate. Secure Identity Systems will also provide its total identity theft protection program to bank employees as part of a competitive benefits package. With this program, Wyoming Bank & Trust can continuously monitor for and detect potential ID theft, as well as ensure employees full recovery in the event of a breach.
“At Wyoming Bank and Trust we are committed to providing our customers with the best personalized banking services available, and incorporating Secure Identity Systems’ total ID theft protection services into our offering does just that,” says Jeff Wallace, President at Wyoming Bank & Trust. “No other vendor in this space offers the level of total ID monitoring, fully managed recovery, and education that Secure Identity Systems provides. By adding this layer of protection we are taking a proactive step in addressing the problem of identity theft and ensuring that all our employees and valued customers are safeguarded against its devastating effects.”
Wyoming Bank & Trust employees will receive the full Secure Identity Systems Plus program as part of their compensation and benefits package. Personal checking account holders with the bank automatically obtain recovery assistance and access to educational seminars when they sign up, and have the choice to subscribe to the complete service at any time. Secure Identity Systems’ four-pronged solution includes:
1. Total identity monitoring. Basic credit monitoring finds only 34 percent of identity breaches. To flag the other 66 percent, Secure Identity Systems tracks hundreds of databases that use Social Security numbers, including utilities, DMV records, medical records, and financial institution records. When a potential breach is detected, Secure Identity Systems contacts the victim directly to ensure privacy.
2. Fully managed breach recovery. Secure Identity Systems manages the entire recovery process, from the first breach to the final resolution, by providing a professional recovery advocate who, through limited power of attorney, works on victims’ behalf to restore their identity. The recovery advocate, not the member, handles the recovery process from beginning to end, including all research, phone calls, letter writing, documentation, and follow-through. Recovery is expedited, while victims’ stress is greatly reduced because they know the process is being professionally managed.
3. Expense reimbursement insurance. High, out-of-pocket expenses and time off from work can cost victims up to $16,000 in lost income on average, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. Secure Identity Systems reimburses identity theft victims—at a zero deductible—for expenses they incur up to $20,000 during recovery efforts. In fact, it’s the only identity theft protection service to cover all financial losses associated with the recovery process, including legal expenses, lost wages, loan application fees, telephone bills, mailing and postage, notarization fees, credit reports, and so on.
4. Ongoing education. Secure Identity Systems puts boots on the ground with the industry’s only on-site field staff that helps financial institutions and individuals implement their systems. This high-touch approach encompasses on-site employee training, member programs, and customized community seminars that fulfill Community Reinvestment Act requirements, while teaching participants how to get the most out of their ID protection benefit.
“With over nine million people falling victim to identity theft and fraud each year, credit card, data and identity theft has quickly become one of the biggest problems facing consumers and financial institutions today, and even more troublesome when it’s not detected early on,” says Bryan Ansley, CEO of Secure Identity Systems. “Wyoming Bank & Trust is doing a great service to its customers and employees by empowering them with a total identity theft protection program that will deliver greater security and peace of mind, and keep their good names safe.”
“At Wyoming Bank and Trust we are committed to providing our customers with the best personalized banking services available, and incorporating Secure Identity Systems’ total ID theft protection services into our offering does just that,” says Jeff Wallace, President at Wyoming Bank & Trust. “No other vendor in this space offers the level of total ID monitoring, fully managed recovery, and education that Secure Identity Systems provides. By adding this layer of protection we are taking a proactive step in addressing the problem of identity theft and ensuring that all our employees and valued customers are safeguarded against its devastating effects.”
Wyoming Bank & Trust employees will receive the full Secure Identity Systems Plus program as part of their compensation and benefits package. Personal checking account holders with the bank automatically obtain recovery assistance and access to educational seminars when they sign up, and have the choice to subscribe to the complete service at any time. Secure Identity Systems’ four-pronged solution includes:
1. Total identity monitoring. Basic credit monitoring finds only 34 percent of identity breaches. To flag the other 66 percent, Secure Identity Systems tracks hundreds of databases that use Social Security numbers, including utilities, DMV records, medical records, and financial institution records. When a potential breach is detected, Secure Identity Systems contacts the victim directly to ensure privacy.
2. Fully managed breach recovery. Secure Identity Systems manages the entire recovery process, from the first breach to the final resolution, by providing a professional recovery advocate who, through limited power of attorney, works on victims’ behalf to restore their identity. The recovery advocate, not the member, handles the recovery process from beginning to end, including all research, phone calls, letter writing, documentation, and follow-through. Recovery is expedited, while victims’ stress is greatly reduced because they know the process is being professionally managed.
3. Expense reimbursement insurance. High, out-of-pocket expenses and time off from work can cost victims up to $16,000 in lost income on average, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. Secure Identity Systems reimburses identity theft victims—at a zero deductible—for expenses they incur up to $20,000 during recovery efforts. In fact, it’s the only identity theft protection service to cover all financial losses associated with the recovery process, including legal expenses, lost wages, loan application fees, telephone bills, mailing and postage, notarization fees, credit reports, and so on.
4. Ongoing education. Secure Identity Systems puts boots on the ground with the industry’s only on-site field staff that helps financial institutions and individuals implement their systems. This high-touch approach encompasses on-site employee training, member programs, and customized community seminars that fulfill Community Reinvestment Act requirements, while teaching participants how to get the most out of their ID protection benefit.
“With over nine million people falling victim to identity theft and fraud each year, credit card, data and identity theft has quickly become one of the biggest problems facing consumers and financial institutions today, and even more troublesome when it’s not detected early on,” says Bryan Ansley, CEO of Secure Identity Systems. “Wyoming Bank & Trust is doing a great service to its customers and employees by empowering them with a total identity theft protection program that will deliver greater security and peace of mind, and keep their good names safe.”
Unica Affinium Suite Improvements
Unica Corporation (Nasdaq: UNCA), a global provider of enterprise marketing management (EMM) solutions, today announced enhancements to its Affinium suite that will improve marketers’ abilities to optimize the selection and delivery of the most relevant and profitable marketing messages for each customer—across many channels from potentially billions of possible combinations of offer, channel, and timing. This latest release also delivers performance enhancements and tighter suite integration for improved productivity, time-to-market, and accuracy. With marketers under mounting pressure to deliver more relevant and frequent inbound and outbound offers, Unica’s automated analytics, integrated suite, and cross-channel capabilities can help streamline the entire marketing process.
As products and services proliferate and customers divide their time across a growing array of channels, marketers are increasingly challenged to identify the combination of offer, channel, and timing that maximizes relevance for each individual customer and ROI for the organization. Marketing optimization accomplishes this while simultaneously ensuring compliance with customer contact frequency rules, channel capacity limits, budget constraints, and other business rules.
“Unica's enterprise marketing management solution has positively impacted our marketing efforts in that we have been able to integrate offer optimization with overall campaign management,” said Nancy O'Keefe, director of Campaign Management, Discover Financial Services. “As we continue to increase the sophistication of our marketing campaigns, we expect the new version of Unica's optimization module will enable us to efficiently optimize campaigns involving multiple user-defined constraints and analyze how changes to them can positively affect our goals.”
Unica Affinium 7.3 includes improvements to its campaign management, optimization, modeling and marketing analytics modules. Among the new capabilities introduced are:
• Patent-pending optimization software that enables definition of custom capacity rules to implement the most relevant interaction with each customer
• Improved scenario analysis that allows marketers to test different scenarios to ascertain, for example, the amount of profit incremental marketing investments would deliver
• Usability and performance enhancements to Unica’s statistical data mining module that offer increased user productivity
• Smoother integration between modules that makes it easier for marketers to incorporate the insight gained from Affinium’s analytics modules into more targeted and effective campaign strategies, and then to measure their full bottom-line impact across channels
Unica’s optimization solution is unique among pure marketing automation providers and can be leveraged to solve one of the most pressing problems facing marketers today—maximizing returns while minimizing costs. Recent independent analyst coverage points to the importance of this technology to marketers. Forrester’s most recent prediction in the January 2008 report, The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2008, indicates true contact optimization capabilities are elusive because most vendors are challenged to combine complicated mathematical algorithms with the intuitive scenario planning capabilities that marketers desire.
“At Unica, we have an ongoing commitment to our customers, to ensure their continued success, improve their performance and boost their productivity,” said Yuchun Lee, chief executive officer of Unica Corporation. “Marketers’ jobs are more demanding and complicated than ever before—from engaging empowered consumers to effectively marketing across multiple channels to delivering results. Our newly enhanced solutions and analytical capabilities enable marketers to more effectively identify intelligent opportunities and execute profitable customer interactions across all channels, which will further strengthen their abilities to improve efficiencies and response rates.”
As products and services proliferate and customers divide their time across a growing array of channels, marketers are increasingly challenged to identify the combination of offer, channel, and timing that maximizes relevance for each individual customer and ROI for the organization. Marketing optimization accomplishes this while simultaneously ensuring compliance with customer contact frequency rules, channel capacity limits, budget constraints, and other business rules.
“Unica's enterprise marketing management solution has positively impacted our marketing efforts in that we have been able to integrate offer optimization with overall campaign management,” said Nancy O'Keefe, director of Campaign Management, Discover Financial Services. “As we continue to increase the sophistication of our marketing campaigns, we expect the new version of Unica's optimization module will enable us to efficiently optimize campaigns involving multiple user-defined constraints and analyze how changes to them can positively affect our goals.”
Unica Affinium 7.3 includes improvements to its campaign management, optimization, modeling and marketing analytics modules. Among the new capabilities introduced are:
• Patent-pending optimization software that enables definition of custom capacity rules to implement the most relevant interaction with each customer
• Improved scenario analysis that allows marketers to test different scenarios to ascertain, for example, the amount of profit incremental marketing investments would deliver
• Usability and performance enhancements to Unica’s statistical data mining module that offer increased user productivity
• Smoother integration between modules that makes it easier for marketers to incorporate the insight gained from Affinium’s analytics modules into more targeted and effective campaign strategies, and then to measure their full bottom-line impact across channels
Unica’s optimization solution is unique among pure marketing automation providers and can be leveraged to solve one of the most pressing problems facing marketers today—maximizing returns while minimizing costs. Recent independent analyst coverage points to the importance of this technology to marketers. Forrester’s most recent prediction in the January 2008 report, The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Marketing Platforms, Q1 2008, indicates true contact optimization capabilities are elusive because most vendors are challenged to combine complicated mathematical algorithms with the intuitive scenario planning capabilities that marketers desire.
“At Unica, we have an ongoing commitment to our customers, to ensure their continued success, improve their performance and boost their productivity,” said Yuchun Lee, chief executive officer of Unica Corporation. “Marketers’ jobs are more demanding and complicated than ever before—from engaging empowered consumers to effectively marketing across multiple channels to delivering results. Our newly enhanced solutions and analytical capabilities enable marketers to more effectively identify intelligent opportunities and execute profitable customer interactions across all channels, which will further strengthen their abilities to improve efficiencies and response rates.”
Saturday, 15 March 2008
Halcyon Asset Management
Founded in 1981, Halcyon is a leading global multi-strategy investment firm, managing over $11 billion in assets for a diverse group of investors including leading public and private pension funds, endowments, foundations, financial institutions, insurance companies, funds of hedge funds and high net worth individuals. Halcyon is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Los Angeles. Halcyon is registered with the SEC and the U.K. Financial Services Authority and has clients in the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe, the Middle East, Asia ex-Japan, Japan and Australia. For more information on Halcyon see www.halcyonllc.com.
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