One of Brickendon’s clients had a highly profitable corporate banking business that was based on old technology which was slow and exposed the bank to significant trade execution risk due to the time lag between pricing and execution. Brickendon were asked to devise a scalable solution to the issue.
The Challenges
- The client’s legacy system was based on vendor technology which required long lead times to implement any improvements. It was not suited to a fast-moving, ever-changing FX business
- This opened the business up to significant operational and trade execution risk and a rapid solution was needed to capitalise on future growth opportunities within the corporate banking segment
- The client had a dispersed architectural design, increasing both the complexity and the costs relating to supporting the existing business
- The previous platform needed to be brought up to date so it could be expanded to meet future business requirements
The Brickendon Solution
- Brickendon proposed a re-architecture of the existing application to build it in-house along the same lines as the existing technology to approach all the challenges highlighted above
- The initial steps were to complete a proof-of-concept using Brickendon’s Rapid Prototype Process to ensure that the proposed solution would meet substantial business and IT requirements
- The solution was scalable, meaning that it could easily be rolled out to other parts of the business, producing further architecture and support cost savings
- Features added to the corporate business platform were instantly available to its institutional clients bringing the benefits beyond the remit established at the project initiation
- It was designed to be replicated across multiple territories enabling the solution to serve the global client base.
Client Benefits
- Brickendon did the project on a fixed price basis, removing the financial risk to the client and guaranteeing delivery within a defined time frame
- The architecture was streamlined and support teams were managed in line with the stated objectives outlined at the beginning of the project
- Execution risk was all but removed for the users, as the time taken to request and execute a trade was reduced to a fraction of the time it took previously
- The client saw an increased product offering, enabling the sales team to roll out the new solution with confidence to existing and new customers
- It also provided a substantial foundation for future products and enhancements that were not available under the previous vendor solution.
At the completion of the project the client had a platform which met the streamlined architectural and IT support goals, supported their current business, and could be enhanced more easily for future growth.
