Mercator Software has put together a unit charged with the development and roll out of a straight through processing integration package for securities firms worldwide.
The new new division, Mercator Global Securities Solutions, will be led by Andrew Muir, who has been named director. Muir joined Mercator in 1995 from Thomson Financial Services, where he played a key role in the launch of the Oasys Global electronic trade confirmation service . Prior to that he headed investment management systems development at Fidelity International and helped establish the ETC standards in London as a member of the original Industry User Group.
Muir comments: "The global securities industry is preparing for T+1, an initiative demanding full settlement of trades one day after the trade date, while at the same time attempting to cope with dramatic increases in transaction volumes. Global Straight Through Processing (GSTP) is a vital component of a high-volume, T+1-enabled operation, providing the infrastructure needed to connect all players and all systems."
Mercator GSS will bring together the transaction management capabilities of the company's financial services integration broker offerings, and several new components to enable rapid deployment of new, real-time GSTP architectures, says Muir.
The launch of the new platform will coincide with the introduction of the GSTPA Transaction Flow Manager (TFM), a process model for cross-border trading defined by the Global Straight Through Processing Association (GSTPA). TFM is scheduled for pilot testing April 2001.
Mercator GSS promises full integration with the GSTPA TFM, a real-time facility for message repair, message tracking, and error processing, and Mercator's ISO15022 metadata repository, which provides full architectural compliance with the new Swift guidelines for securities transaction processing.
Mercator says its US customers are responsible for 40% of US Swift category 5 securities traffic, more than half of domestic UK securities settlement transactions over Crest and 60% of Nordic Swift category 5 securities traffic.
The company says it will demonstrate the new product offerings at a series of workshops in the US, Europe, and Asia.