SimCorp (a leading provider of integrated, front-to-back, multi-asset investment management solutions and services to the world’s largest buy-side institutions) and J.P. Morgan tackle operational inefficiencies and boost transparency with new front-to-back integration.

Available to mutual clients, the seamless front-to-middle office and custody integration between SimCorp and J.P. Morgan delivers a global response to investment operations challenges, including post-trade processing. Already live at one asset owner in APAC, the integration aims to tackle the costly and fragmented investment processes that contribute to operational risk, such as high settlement trade fails seen in recent months. 

With heightened market conditions and low margins continuing to dominate institutional investment, asset managers and asset owners are faced with a plethora of operations challenges. Additionally, in Europe, ESMA* continues to record a higher than usual rate of trade settlement fails, as the market volatility seen in 2020, put a spotlight on the inefficient and heavily manual processing buy-side firms experience today. To reduce the risk and cost of manual and disjointed operations and to address the complexities of a remote workforce, many institutions are now looking to rationalize operations. Automating workflows and increasing data transparency in post-trade processing has become a natural starting point, providing a golden opportunity to create additional value.

SimCorp’s established software-enabled services and J.P. Morgan’s comprehensive securities services, will enable this value generation and alleviate operational pain points, by delivering interoperability and transparency in the front office, middle office and custody. The sharing of intra-day, multi-asset data will enhance key investment workflows from tax reclaims to proactive risk management of unprocessed trades, delivering improved automation and user experience. While, augmented exception commentary will provide compliance teams with greater context, indicating action ownership for faster settlement, reducing the number of failed trades in the market today.

Marc Schröter, Senior Vice President, Global Product Management at SimCorp comments: “Timely and agile access to consistent data is essential to fully address some of the key pain points in the buy side. The collaboration with J.P. Morgan strengthens our continued industry collaboration with global asset servicers and custodians, and is a prime example of how providers in the space can draw upon combined expertise to address our clients’ issues more effectively. As we move towards a diverse and connected future, opening up our architecture and creating an open ecosystem will facilitate the buy side with more flexibility in their operations. The value created in these partnerships, goes beyond data and operations, delivering reduced cost and risk, while importantly supporting investment decision making and optimizing operational agility for our clients.”

Naveen TV, Managing Director in Securities Services, J.P. Morgan adds: "One of the key buy-side challenges today is the fragmented experience firms have in integrating their investment management processes across the investment chain and through to custodial services. The integration with SimCorp enables mutual clients with seamless data delivery across both SimCorp Dimension and J.P. Morgan’s Securities Services. By sharing enriched transaction data sets and operational workflows within an open integration, we firmly believe that the flexibility this delivers, combined with our joint capabilities, will greatly benefit clients in their quest for efficient and transparent operations.”

*ESMA Report on Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities (No 1, 2021)

Press release by SimCorp