The non-compliant use of messaging platforms has led to billions in regulatory fines. Symphony helps enable seamless compliant messaging with clients via WhatsApp, WeChat and SMS
Enable surveillance and recordkeeping of clients’ preferred messaging platforms
Enable maintenance of SMS communication records for regulatory compliance
The only fully open, scalable, and secure collaboration platform purpose-built for global markets – enabling efficient workflows and compliant communication
Suite of modular collaboration capabilities accelerates communication
Leverage Symphony’s capabilities in your platforms and portals
Secure, compliance-enabling framework meets the stringent needs of markets
Compliance-enabling and scalable voice technology maximizes efficiency by defragmenting communication and connecting traders and trader-adjacent teams instantly
Eliminate communication silos and provide instant voice connectivity
Cross-organizational solution native to Symphony and built for speed
Trader-adjacent connectivity with global intercom across internal teams
Full-featured turret replacement with maximum external connectivity
Facilitate productivity, collaboration and effective co-working with leading video conferencing platforms integrated alongside Symphony chats and rooms
Keep collaborating in Symphony while joining or hosting Zoom meetings
Retain Symphony workflow context during Teams Video meetings
Connect your everyday systems to Symphony to improve efficiency, reduce context switching and mitigate manual tasks
Enterprise software bi-directionally integrated with Symphony
415+ apps and 2K+ bots to help streamline and automate workflows
In years past, the operations function at financial institutions was often regarded as background infrastructure (and also at times, overlooked by colleagues in other departments). But now, we’ve seen a shift – as the industry undergoes a massive digital transformation amidst a complex and evolving regulatory environment, operations has become a critical area of focus at the highest levels of the organization. In other words, operations professionals are finally getting the recognition they deserve.
The global finance industry’s perception of operations is changing. A simple analogy to illustrate this shift is the relationship between a car and its engine. A luxury vehicle may boast a sleek finish, state-of-the-art features, and a comfortable interior, but if the engine runs poorly, the value of the car is significantly diminished.
Operations are the engine of a financial organization. And as the industry demands a higher standard of performance in areas like regulatory compliance and risk management, the people who keep these engines running smoothly are now more critical than ever. Ops teams now occupy a seat at the table during reviews with brokers and buy-side clients, where process automation and accurate data exchange between interoperable market infrastructures factor heavily into decisions about where to allocate business. Nowadays, processes like trade settlement, regulatory reporting, and other operations functions can literally win–or cost–a sell-side firm significant shares of business.
A major reason for the increased focus on operations is the current global regulatory environment. Since the 2008 market crash and subsequent recession, regulators around the world have tightened compliance requirements for financial institutions–a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. The list of new regulatory measures since 2008 reads like alphabet soup: EMIR, MiFID II, SRD II, ISO 20022, SFDR, SFTR, CSDR, etc. These changes, which affect processes ranging across trade confirmation & settlement, regulatory reporting, governance, and other areas, demand skilled operations teams to keep an organization abreast of shifting compliance requirements. And the more regulatory developments arise, the more crucial operations are to the successful functioning of the organization.
In addition, financial services firms are laser-focused on pre- and post-execution in real time, as well as establishing standardized and interoperable workflows to reduce market risk (if not eliminate it altogether) while increasing profitability. Operations professionals, learning from past and present gaps and mistakes, are the ones equipped to re-engineer their firms’ operating models by engaging with strategic third-party vendors that complement their technology and enable secure interoperability with verified counterparts.
As the industry’s perception of operations evolves, professionals in this area should take a renewed sense of pride and purpose in their work. They have earned a seat at the table in financial market associations, and play an important role in advocating for market changes and establishing guidelines for best practices. The sales team may be the stereotypical star players in the world of finance–but when it comes to the value professionals bring to an organization, senior management is increasingly recognizing the people who keep the engine running smoothly.
More than ever before, business success depends upon an organization’s ability to communicate quickly and effectively. It’s clear that the “workplace” has radically changed. This new landscape demands three things from every company’s communication tools:
In December of 2021, SIFMA, ICI and DTCC called for the shortening of the settlement cycle in the U.S. financial markets from T+2 (transaction date plus two days) to T+1 (transaction date plus one day) within the first half of 2024. Their report indicates that accelerating the settlement process will “reduce risks and costs for the industry while building upon the benefits achieved in the successful move to T+2 in 2017.” This is in line with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement on Feb 9, 2022 of a proposed rule to shorten the standard settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions from two business days after the trade date (“T+2″) to one business day after the trade date (“T+1″), while soliciting comments regarding challenges and possible approaches to achieving settlement by the end of trade date (“T+0″).
In our journey building an event mesh, we face the challenge of reconciling with Symphony’s engineering history. Specifically, we are transitioning from a single-tenant, monolithic architecture to a multi-tenant, microservice architecture. And critically, due to the nature of our business, this shift must be both progressive and smooth.
