TA/EquiLend Gateway: A conduit to liquidity
30 May 2017
The EquiLend Gateway App offered by Trading Apps serves as the digital highway between a securities lending business and the EquiLend community. Chris Valentino, sales and client director for the Americas at Trading Apps, explains
Image: Shutterstock
Let’s face it, the global securities lending market continues to be a predominantly fractured marketplace. And while some of the pockets of liquidity are relatively new, such as EquiLend’s Next Generation Trading (NGT) and EquiLend Clearing Services (ECS) products, many transactions continue to happen the old fashion way: via email, Bloomberg, instant message and the telephone.
With the increased cost of capital continuing to exert pressure on the industry, market participants are finding that technologies supporting trade automation and straight-through processing are no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity.
At Trading Apps, we have recognised the tangible value that speed, automation and efficiency can provide to a securities lending business since our foundation in 2011. Our targeted applications continue to raise the bar regarding trade and process automation, transparency, revenue optimisation and risk mitigation.
Just recently, Trading Apps embarked on a new relationship with a US broker-dealer that is an extremely active lender in the US specials market. Like many participants in the market, this broker-dealer was looking for a way to gain access to liquidity in the most efficient and automated way possible.
The EquiLend NGT platform appeared to be the perfect fit with its growing popularity, impressive client roster, and standardised approach to conducting business. However, connecting to this pocket of liquidity presented a challenge. This particular broker-dealer (as do many others) utilises FIS Smart Loan as its front-end trading system. Capitalising on the growing liquidity on the EquiLend NGT platform meant being able to dynamically link the FIS Smart Loan platform to EquiLend NGT. This is where Trading Apps stepped in.
The EquiLend Gateway App offered by Trading Apps serves as the digital highway between a securities lending business and the EquiLend community. In this particular case, the app is serving as a digital translator between FIS Smart Loan and EquiLend’s NGT platform. The previously mentioned broker-dealer has recently gone live with the app and is engaging in both borrowing and lending activities. The client is already experiencing an uptick in trading volumes with 1,000 additional trade messages being processed on a daily basis.
In the coming months, the client will roll out the availability portion of the project to round out the workflow. Once that is complete, the client will have the ability to post its real-time targeted availability (with rates) throughout the day. Counterparties that are on the EquiLend NGT platform will be able to consume that availability and dynamically respond with EquiLend AutoBorrow requests. Those requests will be translated by Trading Apps and fed seamlessly into FIS Smart Loan for processing.
This is just one example—and with one client—of how Trading Apps is collaborating with other vendors in the marketplace and providing solutions that enhance the speed, automation and revenue generating capabilities of our clients.
In this particular case, we have demonstrated our flexibility by connecting our EquiLend Gateway App to the FIS Smart Loan platform; our speed, by implementing at a market-leading rate; and our sophistication, by designing a workflow that has provided this client with a transformational experience, and a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
With the increased cost of capital continuing to exert pressure on the industry, market participants are finding that technologies supporting trade automation and straight-through processing are no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity.
At Trading Apps, we have recognised the tangible value that speed, automation and efficiency can provide to a securities lending business since our foundation in 2011. Our targeted applications continue to raise the bar regarding trade and process automation, transparency, revenue optimisation and risk mitigation.
Just recently, Trading Apps embarked on a new relationship with a US broker-dealer that is an extremely active lender in the US specials market. Like many participants in the market, this broker-dealer was looking for a way to gain access to liquidity in the most efficient and automated way possible.
The EquiLend NGT platform appeared to be the perfect fit with its growing popularity, impressive client roster, and standardised approach to conducting business. However, connecting to this pocket of liquidity presented a challenge. This particular broker-dealer (as do many others) utilises FIS Smart Loan as its front-end trading system. Capitalising on the growing liquidity on the EquiLend NGT platform meant being able to dynamically link the FIS Smart Loan platform to EquiLend NGT. This is where Trading Apps stepped in.
The EquiLend Gateway App offered by Trading Apps serves as the digital highway between a securities lending business and the EquiLend community. In this particular case, the app is serving as a digital translator between FIS Smart Loan and EquiLend’s NGT platform. The previously mentioned broker-dealer has recently gone live with the app and is engaging in both borrowing and lending activities. The client is already experiencing an uptick in trading volumes with 1,000 additional trade messages being processed on a daily basis.
In the coming months, the client will roll out the availability portion of the project to round out the workflow. Once that is complete, the client will have the ability to post its real-time targeted availability (with rates) throughout the day. Counterparties that are on the EquiLend NGT platform will be able to consume that availability and dynamically respond with EquiLend AutoBorrow requests. Those requests will be translated by Trading Apps and fed seamlessly into FIS Smart Loan for processing.
This is just one example—and with one client—of how Trading Apps is collaborating with other vendors in the marketplace and providing solutions that enhance the speed, automation and revenue generating capabilities of our clients.
In this particular case, we have demonstrated our flexibility by connecting our EquiLend Gateway App to the FIS Smart Loan platform; our speed, by implementing at a market-leading rate; and our sophistication, by designing a workflow that has provided this client with a transformational experience, and a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
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