John Bissett, head of IT, Bank of Scotland (Ireland), says, "Using TLM we are building automated, volume insensitive processes that will enable us to deliver the highest level of customer service and further reduce risk as we continue to expand our operations."

SmartStream's TLM PA and TLM Cash Management will provide the bank's finance and treasury divisions with visibility across their entire payments process. Automated workflow, designed around the firm's own business rules, will enable the bank to eliminate paper work and reduce re-keying of data – dramatically driving down opportunity for human error.

Payments will be automatically managed from start to finish – standing settlement instructions will be identified and automatically attached to the payment, which will be seamlessly routed from the dealers to treasury services. Once reviewed and approved, TLM will automatically route the transaction to settlements in Swift format for payment. As the payment progresses through its lifecycle TLM Reconciliations will be used to verify the transactions – reducing risk even further by highlighting possible exceptions.

Steve Moss, UK managing director, SmartStream, says, "We are absolutely delighted to be working with Bank of Scotland (Ireland) on this project. TLM’s flexibility, integrated workflow and scalability make it the perfect platform for automating the bank's processes and delivering greater control and visibility. This investment the bank’s making in TLM will deliver a future-proofed Payments system to support their business today and in years to come."

Launch of TLM Corona

The new TLM Corona product has been developed to be central to SmartStream’s STP Control Architecture Web platform and is focused on reducing its total cost of ownership (TCO).

TLM Corona is a new offering specifically for clients wanting to access all the deep functionality of Corona, using a state of the art web client. In addition to the significant cost savings that web-based applications offer, TLM Corona also provides users with access to SmartStream’s entire range of TLM products – integrating Corona to SmartStream’s STP Control Architecture.

Wolfgang Prinz, product manager, SmartStream, says, "TLM Corona delivers both technical and functional benefits to drive down risk and remove cost from the business. Financial institutions can extend remote access beyond their own employees – providing customers and business partners with secure access to the same screens as internal staff. TLM Corona provides firms with greater control of their risk exposure and the ability to deliver customer self-service."

Web dashboards in TLM Corona enable clients to reduce their reliance upon third party reporting tools because dashboards are fully customisable. Both operational and management users can be presented with the information that’s relevant for their role internally or across the internet. Operational insight is strengthened through drill-down functionality that allows users to quickly and easily query data for operational and reporting purposes.

The combination of low cost deployment and reduced systems maintenance delivered by TLM Corona’s pure internet architecture and the enhanced dashboard functionality means that TCO is significantly reduced.

"Regardless of the implementation’s scale it can be managed centrally and once installed, updates and functional changes can be rolled out quickly and easily across the organisation. We believe this will have a significant reduction to clients TCO," says Prinz.

"TLM Corona is just a further example of SmartStream’s long-term commitment to Corona and provides a valuable upgrade path to access the rest of SmartStream’s Transaction Lifecycle Management solutions. It will enable Corona clients to build on their reconciliations and exception management functionality to create an STP control architecture to manage transaction lifecycles from front- to back office."

TLM Corporate Actions upgrade

SmartStream Technologies also today launched the latest release of TLM Corporate Actions.

TLM Corporate Actions 7.0 provides leading global financial institutions with a scalable, flexible, leading edge solution for automating the complete event management process. The new release builds on the rich functionality that has already established TLM Corporate Actions as a market leading application.

Darryl Twiggs, product manager, says, "With existing implementations in every major time zone including: T.Rowe Price in the US, Vanguard in Australia, and Sydbank in Europe - TLM Corporate Actions has proved its capability globally. The significant investment that SmartStream has made in 7.0 has ensured that TLM Corporate Actions will continue to go from strength to strength, remaining significantly ahead of the competition."

TLM Corporate Actions 7.0 is unique in supporting the complete event management lifecycle, providing a single scalable application that delivers control and accountability to all parties involved with event management. From data sourcing and cleansing through to election and entitlement management the solution covers every stage in the process. New functionality includes:

• Integrated workflow that dynamically guides users through their working day.
• A unique diary interface that presents corporate actions staff with task lists and priorities - managed in real time. Using the diary, staff can monitor the event lifecycle and track progress of the event against the critical dates.
• Active alerting, both audible and visual ensures both users and supervisors know when critical actions are required.
• Web-based voluntary response tracking that extends the automated corporate actions process to enable clients to make their voluntary event elections online.
• Pre-packaged integration to more than 40 market data feeds – for increased flexibility in data sourcing
• New levels of usability have been delivered – all information is just one click away and drill-down capability allows users direct access to event details and the complete audit trail.

"TLM Corporate Actions 7.0 offers both buy-side and sell-side firms a step change in automating the complete corporate actions process," says Twiggs. "SmartStream has invested heavily to cover ever angle, not only enhancing the functionality of the application, but also the usability, flexibility and scalability. With corporate actions volumes increasing we are confident that TLM Corporate Actions 7.0 will now provide firms with the automation and control they need to minimise risk and their exposure to financial losses."