SmartStream says it will combine its reconciliations and exception management solutions with ESI's corporate actions and data cleansing software under a new 'STP Control Architecture', dubbed TLM.

ESI's solutions are platform-independent, object-based, client/server applications written in C++, SQL and Java. The company's clients include Bank of Tokyo, Credit Suisse First Boston, Barclays Global Investors, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Northern Trust Company.

The transaction underscores the growing requirement for vendors to provide integrated solutions to the straight-through processing requirements of their clients.

Martin Brown, chief executive officer of SmartStream Technologies, says the firm will use its financial and operational muscle to invest heavily in ESI's products in an effort to dominate the emerging market for corporate actions processing.

The ESI Cams package manages the entire front to back corporate actions process, ranging from event notification to entitlement calculation and claims resolution. Data inputs from third parties, such as Swift, Telekurs, Bloomberg, Euroclear, FII and DTC are automatically merged, compared, cleansed and normalised and any exceptions are identified for review and correction. Support is provided for international processing including currency conversion, tax rates, security number cross-reference, and income processing features such as income projection, dividends and interest.

Driven by high costs and risks from predominantly manual systems, the corporate actions marketplace is embryonic but entering a significant growth phase. A recent Tower Group report estimated annual growth of over 30% through to 2005.