Even last year, Euromoney had difficulty persuading any banks to enter the post-trade categories in these technology awards. It simply was not an area of focus for most banks, with the clear exception of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which has offered its excellent ops/tracker multiproduct platform for several years.
This year there were 15 entrants in the foreign exchange post-trade category, reflecting the increasing focus that banks and their clients are placing on this essential area of efficiency.
Given the large number of entrants, and given the fact that most platforms do almost exactly the same things, it was difficult to choose a winner. Almost every big bank offers a screen where back-office staff at client firms can confirm transactions. Generally the screens highlight only unmatched or problematical trades, and everything else is booked and allocated into the relevant accounts with no human intervention at all. This is an impressive mark of how well developed banks’ trade processing now is. The best platforms offer electronic confirmations for options as well as for cash products, and they offer some kind of electronic tool for resolving problems.
UBS wins this category with its KeyLink product, because as well as covering all the basics, clients can use it to confirm trades that are not executed with UBS but with other banks.