Vendor Clearing Market Gears Up for Tech Spending
ADP Brokerage Processing Services
www. bsg.adp.com
ADP's Brokerage Processing Services (BPS) dominates the service bureau market in North America. ADP services various clients, from correspondent brokers to individual retail brokers, and features a range of cross-border, international and North American global and local transaction processing services.
Gloss is a real-time, integrated system for trade processing clearing, settlement covering a range of instruments, such as international debts and equities. BPS supports real time equities, options, fixed-income and mutual fund processing in North America and features a browser-based desktop, automated inquiry and reporting and record-keeping services.
It includes, BPS Advantage, a real-time relational database that allows firms to develop proprietary applications and create custom reports. It operates in a client/server environment and interfaces with third-party client and portfolio management systems. The desktop tool, ProVisor, automates order entry, and porvides access to real-time market data, as well as portfolio and contact management tools.
SunGard Securities Processing
www.securities.sungard.com
Phase3
SunGard Securities Processing services a range of clients, from the small to large broker/dealers, including firms that self-clear and act as correspondent brokers. Its straight-through-processing solutions, delivered in an ASP environment, are designed to help firms lower transaction costs and reduce risk. The firm provides real-time, Web-enabled portfolio management, clearance and settlement, accounting and operations-workflow solutions.
Phase3 is a complete order-to-settlement solution that features sophisticated real-time edits and validation of securities and funds, which reduces errors. The system's core capabilities include: accounting, annuities processing, cash management, cashiering / cage, clearance and settlement, compliance, correspondent clearing, dividends, financing and collateral management, margin, mutual funds, new accounts (name and address), P & S, online-report viewing and optical storage, order management, reorg, retirement plans (IRAs), wrap-account modeling and year-end tax reporting.
Thomson Financial Beta Systems
www.betasystems.com
BETA suite.
BETAHost, the firm's signature product, is a mainframe-based system, comprising 300 separate-user transactions. It allows firms to enter and process orders online and maintain customer and firm accounts. The features include:
Accounting, annuity processing, automated-customer-account-transfer system (acats), cash management, cashiering, compliance, correspondent clearing, dividends, external interfaces, IRAs, margin, money markets, multi-currency capabilities, mutual funds, new accounts, order processing, P & S, real-time processing, reorg, sales support and branch operations, security master, shareholder accounting, trading and syndicate and year-end customer-tax reporting.
Correspondent Clearers
With correspondent clearers, it's the bells and whistles that firms are building which distinguishes one firm's strategy from another. Here are some of the leaders in correspondent clearing and settlement.
ABN Amro Clearing and Execution Services (AACES)
www.abnamroinc.com
ABN Amro correspondent-clearing services are ""geared primarily to the professional-trading community,"" notes Doug Engmann, chief executive officer of AACES, but it is reaching into the retail market and providing ""access to some of the technology we've developed for our institutional clients."" One key features, he says, is its in-house options-execution capability and its smart-order-routing technology.
AACES is a comprehensive suite of products and services and the firm is a member of all the domestic equity and options exchanges. It provides future clearing and execution and is a clearing member of major global futures exchanges.
Bear, Stearns Global Clearing Services
www.globalclearing.com
With more than 26 years of experience, Global Clearing Services (GCS) ""provides a range of services, products and technology to help broker/dealers make money,"" says Ron Suber, senior managing director of the firm. This includes hedging and monetization expertise, asset management, access to more than 10,000 mutual funds and lending solutions. Web Shell is the firm's browser-based product that provides seamless point-of-entry to a variety of productivity and reporting applications either through the Internet or on dedicated lines. WebBroker is a point-and-click PC-workstation tool that displays a client's account and can be used in the office or home. It includes contact management, portfolio management, performance reporting and order entry.
BNY Clearing Services LLC
www.bnyclearing.com
A subsidiary of the Bank of New York, the firms' services extend to more than 60 countries. Using a blend of proprietary and third-party products, BNYCS provides correspondents with comprehensive transaction-processing-support capabilities. It includes a fully integrated, state-of- the-art multi-tasking workstation that provides registered representatives with simultaneous access to client-account data and market information. The firm has strategic alliances with ILX and BETA Systems, leveraging the BETALink branch-office system to deliver back-office integration and allow quick access to client-securities data and information.
Broadcort Capital Corp.
www.broadcort.com
A subsidiary of Merrill Lynch; Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated Broadcort has been a leader in the clearing industry since 1976. The firm leverages Merrill's experience and features state-of-the-art technology used by institutional clients and high-net-worth broker/dealers to perform back-office operations for global trades. The company offers a comprehensive range of clearing and execution services for fixed-income and equity products which includes access to mutual funds and research. Broadcort also and provides online access through Broadcort Online, part of Merrill's MLX Portal which includes electronic downloads of client statements, trade confirmations, compliance reports and access to Merrill's communications services.
Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Services Group
www.ibg.fidelity.com
Fidelity provides solutions to a range of clients including broker/dealers, registered-investment advisors, third-party Administrators and trust institutions.
Bobbi Masiello, a senior vice president in the group, says the strength of the offering is ""the technology. We have a pretty robust platform and try to leverage a lot of development in other parts of the organization."" The firm runs its system on a proprietary platform that features a lot of Web technology and includes client reporting, tax reporting, tax-lot accounting, management reporting and middle-office solutions. Streetscape is Fidelity's online-brokerage platform. It provides a single point of access to real-time market data, news and independent research. It integrates trading and service functionality with investor-account balance and position data.
Fiserv Securities, Inc.
www.fiservsecurities.com
Fiserv Securities, Inc. and Fiserv Correspondent Services, Inc., merged operations in 2001 to provide a single platform for securities clearing and execution services. Its broker-support center features include: knowledgeable trading and administrative staff, private-label programs with customized 800-numbers, variety of delivery channels for trading, including Internet, prospect fulfillment, new-account processing - via mail, phone or Internet, brokerage-account administration and cashier-related activities, quality assurance for accurate processing and timely tracking of customer inquiries, weekly and monthly reporting of standardized service levels, senior compliance professionals available for oversight, after-hours and overflow support, marketing and advertising support and support for a full line of investment products.
Pershing
www.pershing.com
A giant in the clearance and settlement business, Pershing expects to invest $275 million on technology this year. During the first quarter, it processed 8,058,000 trades. ""The strength of our system is our management resources, our technology and our financial products and services,"" says John Diamantis, managing director and co-head of Pershing's global customers group. He notes that the technology spend is an indication of Pershing's commitment to the correspondent-clearing market. The firm relies on its proprietary technology and services about 750 financial institutions with a full-breadth of products and services, including mutual-fund and annuity programs, retirement accounts, asset management, managed accounts and research.
SWS Securities
www.swst.com
Started in 1972, SWS has grown from 12 employees to more than 1,000 and $3.8 billion in assets. The firm offers a variety of financial services from processing of securities transactions to online investing. Services include corporate finance, equity trading, fixed income, research, private-client-group services, institutional sales, public finances and securities clearing. Firm has 200 correspondents and 5,000 affiliated sales people in the United States and abroad.
U.S. Clearing
www.usclearing.com
Owned by Fleet Boston Financial, U.S. Clearing provides full-scale execution, clearing and business enhancement services to 400 investment firms. It features an Internet-brokerage platform that integrates market data, research, trading and account access.
The firm offers customized Web-site design and installation services as well as touch-tone trading and voice-response systems for clients. It claims to be the leading clearing firm for Internet brokers and has built Web sites for many of the top-ranked online-brokerage firms. Its product menu includes an expansive mutual-fund roster (including no-transaction-fee funds), ""No-Fee-For Life"" IRAs, comprehensive cash-management services, brand name institutional-quality research and fee-based-advisory products.
Wexford Clearing Services Corporation
www.wexfordclearing.com
Owned by Prudential Securities, Wexford provides a wide range of clearing services and related products. Wexford Online allows clients 24X7 access to their account information via the Internet, permitting them to view everything from market information to account activity, positions and balances and monthly statements. It also offers a range of research and financial products, including wrap-fee programs and an array of mutual funds.
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