SmartStream has launched a new on demand version of its corporate actions processing solution, TLM Corporate Actions Event Management On Demand , in line with its push to provide software as a service (SaaS) versions of its offerings. Alan Jones, senior product manager at the vendor, explains that the solution has seen interest from mid-size asset managers seeking to benefit from the operational efficiency of a hosted solution without the potentially higher costs of on premise implementation.
The solution provides a diary-based approach to corporate action event management, with the automated population of an online database of all events that affect client portfolios, explains Jones. “One client was able to reduce the corporate action event management process down from four hours for each individual event to an instant,” he says. The solution provides a single corporate action event master record with the relevant diary entries automatically populated and will identify and flag any potential exceptions ahead of time.
Jones indicates that around 28 clients from across the US, Europe and Asia are currently using the solution, although proportionally more are from the US, and there are two other new clients considering the hosted model. One of these potentially new clients is the investment arm of a large investment bank and the other is a fund services company.
The vendor reckons the solution differs from the other competitive offerings on the market due to the flexibility of the user interface, which can also deal with reference data items, and the way it can be slotted into the vendor’s other TLM solutions in other spaces. On that note, in July, the vendor released a new historic transaction data archiving solution, TLM Archive, which aims to provide efficient long term storage of transaction data once their business lifecycle has completed for regulatory reporting purposes.
Jones explains that another key focus for the vendor is the tracking and automation of tax related data for regulatory reporting purposes under the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The regulation, which will come into effect on 1 January 2013, requires more rigorous identification and documentation of investors, and withholding taxes for non-compliance. Among other things, it will mean additional requirements to record static data, such as whether an instrument is categorised as US or not.
In order to prepare for customer demand for services to help them to meet the FATCA requirements, SmartStream already has in place a partnership deal with tax compliance specialist GlobeTax. Jones indicates that the vendor is also looking to extend a similar partnership agreement to the other vendor on the tax solution block, Goal Group.
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