Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has won the settlement award for each of the past three years with ops/tracker, and it is still the best settlement tool on the net, even though others have worked hard to catch up. Privately, several senior e-commerce bankers at firms that have broadly much stronger suites of online products admit that they are jealous of what DrKW has in this area.
The site went live in August 2000 with cash equities. One of the most impressive features of ops/tracker is its extensive product range. In 2001 the bank added fixed-income products and exchange-traded derivatives (ETDs). This year it has included over-the-counter equities, prime brokerage and central counterparty features. It intends to add forex in 2003.
The site is used by fund managers and broker-dealers. Roughly half of them use it to track settlement on securities and ETDs, and half use it for clearing OTC products. Around 600 people from 200 institutions use the site, which is configured not only for English-speaking clients but also for those who speak Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
The platform acts like a direct window into DrKW's settlement processing systems; there is no barrier between the bank's settlement system and the ops/tracker platform.