Banks and hedge funds will be able to access new hosted solutions for derivatives processing, treasury operations and loan syndication following the launch today of new ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) programme by Misys, the global software and solutions company.
Misys’ SaaS program will see hosted services as a deployment option across Misys’ Treasury & Capital Markets solution suite – Misys Summit, Opics Plus and Loan IQ. The news coincides with the start of Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s (SIFMA) annual Technology Management Conference & Exhibition, where SaaS is a central theme.
The solutions will enable many larger banks to remove the capital expense associated with software and hardware, and dramatically reduce the IT resources necessary to operate mission critical capital markets systems. Other benefits will include speeding up time to enter new markets for hedge funds, investment companies and banking institutions, while the risk of testing new market operations for banks will also be lowered.
Misys Treasury & Capital Markets has already seen significant success in this area. Misys Summit ASP – the company’s first multi-asset class system on a hosted platform for hedge funds, smaller banks and corporate treasury departments has been available exclusively in Europe since 2001. It currently handles trading, portfolio analytics and risk management, for 15 financial institutions in the region. Misys also boasts a market-leading hosted confirmation matching service for corporates and banks – Misys Treasury Plus.
“Financial institutions want proven deployment records,” comments Steve Victore, managing director Americas, Misys Treasury & Capital Markets. “Through developing repeatable implementations in Europe we’ve acquired best practices for rapid deployment of tailored solutions in this area.”
SaaS is a central theme at SIFMA’s annual Technology Management Exhibition & Conference, held at the Hilton Hotel in New York between July 19 – 21st, and is widely recognized as an area of technology advance that is transforming many financial businesses.
"The industry is focused on achieving operational efficiencies and scalability in core applications. Once you get past the internal politics of ownership, outsourcing the management of enterprise applications makes sense. You don’t have the upgrade headaches, hardware management issues, and it is a lot easier to hold a vendor accountable to an SLA than your own staff," says Adam D. Honoré, senior analyst with Aite Group. "SaaS mirrors the governance practices many firms are adopting whereby the people closest to the source manage the business process. Who better to manage the software than the people who wrote it?"
The SaaS version of Misys Loan IQ is available now, while hosted services for Misys Summit and Opics Plus will be available alongside Misys’ existing non-hosted solutions in the Americas later this year with plans to roll out the solutions to European and Asian markets in 2008.
