DTCC - The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation
10/19/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/19/2021 06:21
National Australia Bank to Submit and Maintain Settlement & Account Data on DTCC Alert, Bringing Greater Automation and Accuracy to the Post-Trade Lifecycle
New York/London/Hong Kong/Singapore/Sydney, 19 October 2021 ‒ The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that National Australia Bank Asset Servicing (NAS) has agreed to submit and maintain Standing Settlement Instructions (SSIs) directly via its ALERT service, the industry's largest and most compliant web-based global database for the maintenance and communication of account and SSI data. NAS is now leveraging ALERT's Global Custodian (GC) Direct workflow, which automates the exchange of SSIs between a custodian's central repository and ALERT enabling the global custodian/prime broker to own and manage the SSI data for their buy-side clients, effectively creating the "golden copy" within the ALERT platform, further automating the maintenance of SSIs and driving reliable source data.
"We pride ourselves on being client-centric and saw great value in maintaining and providing SSI data to our regional clients through ALERT, thereby eliminating the need for them to manually enter SSI details and improving our internal data management processes," said Wayne Francis, Head of Network Management & Custody Support, at NAB Asset Servicing. "With ALERT, we are able to bring greater efficiency, risk mitigation and accuracy to the post-trade settlement process for our client-base."
"We are pleased to have NAS entering and managing SSIs directly through ALERT as a data source provider," said Bob Stewart, Executive Director, Institutional Trade Processing, at DTCC. "SSIs represent a significant pain point for firms, as missing or incomplete SSIs is a common cause of trade failures. Centralization and automation of high quality, golden source SSI data published by custodians lowers the chances for failed trades while improving efficiency and auditability, key wins for NAS and their clients."
As part of this effort, NAS is tracking and monitoring trade failure numbers as they migrate client account and SSI data to ALERT, and expect fails to be dramatically reduced.
ALERT is a key part of DTCC's Institutional Trade Processing (ITP) service suite, which offers buy-side, sell-side and custodian firms an end-to-end "no touch" processing solution across their post-trade activity. Reducing post-trade touch points is a key priority for firms across the financial services industry, amplified by recent market volatility and forthcoming regulatory requirements, including those in the Central Securities Depositories Regulation's (CSDR) Settlement Discipline Regime to be implemented in February 2022. The regime will impose penalty fees for failed transactions by European firms, and will have an extraterritorial impact on global firms that enter into transactions with European firms.
Today, there are 19 data source providers-including custodians, prime brokers and trust banks-managing SSI data in ALERT leveraging the GC Direct workflow, and representing over 35% of the 11.5 million SSIs in the database.
About ALERT GC Direct
With ALERT GC Direct, custodian banks and prime brokers can electronically manage settlement instructions through ALERT on behalf of their buy-side clients. This enhanced custodian and prime broker access enables them to become the owner and maintainer of SSIs using dedicated ISO 20022 compliant messages. The automated exchange of SSIs between a custodian's central repository and the ALERT host ensures sensitive settlement data is secure. Future effective SSI updates can also be managed so custodian banks and prime brokers can proactively update their buy-side clients of pending market changes.
About DTCC
With over 45 years of experience, DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. From 21 locations around the world, DTCC, through its subsidiaries, automates, centralizes and standardizes the processing of financial transactions, mitigating risk, increasing transparency and driving efficiency for thousands of broker/dealers, custodian banks and asset managers. Industry owned and governed, the firm simplifies the complexities of clearing, settlement, asset servicing, data management, data reporting and information services across asset classes, bringing increased security and soundness to financial markets. In 2020, DTCC's subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at more than U.S. $2.3 quadrillion. Its depository provides custody and asset servicing for securities issues from 170 countries and territories valued at U.S. $73.5 trillion. DTCC's Global Trade Repository service, through locally registered, licensed, or approved trade repositories, processes 15 billion messages annually. To learn more, please visit us at www.dtcc.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.