Automatic Feed Processing for OLYMPIC at Banque de Luxembourg

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• Automated corporate actions reports
• Opening of instruments into Olympic
• Packaged STP solution

In July 2003, the Banque de Luxembourg decided to implement the GAIN DataDesktop – the modular reference data management platform of AIM Software – for the integration of the data feed VDF (Valor Data Feed) from Telekurs Financial with the goal of increasing the quality of its back office security management. The implementation was done by the AIM certified partner Datagate (Luxembourg) S.A. – the financial data management specialist in Luxembourg.

"We chose GAIN DataDesktop with the purpose to use corporate actions reports and pricing information in an existing environment without changing the software in use. Furthermore, we were able to move to an automated environment including the automatic opening of new securities as well as to undertake further steps towards automated processing of security data," states Fabien Heilbronn from Banque de Luxembourg.

Corporate Actions as the main motivation
Banque de Luxembourg chose GAIN Data Management following a comprehensive evaluation process of the currently available data management systems on the market. Beside the good cost/performance ratio, the easy and fast installation, the maturity of GAIN as well as the excellent standing of Datagate and AIM Software in Luxembourg (over 20 clients) was decisive according to the client.

The deployment of GAIN will allow Banque de Luxembourg to view and process all VDF corporate action messages connected with a transaction, further enhancing efficiency and reducing operational risk. "The decision to partner with Datagate and AIM Software was taken due to its long track record in the area of corporate actions management and the ability to extend the solution to our growing needs in the area of STP," Olivier Nosetti states.

From project kick-off to production in 3 months
In the first step of the project AIM Software and Datagate analyzed the client's needs and organized the delivery of the necessary instrument data from Telekurs Financial. During the further course of the project the user-friendly administration interface proved advantageous: all queries, reports and mappings were developed graphically.

In March, 2003 the installation took place. The whole effort for the project was reduced to a minimum due to the turnkey modules of GAIN. The bank could thereby fully automate the delivery of the VDF data feed without any frictions and with only minimal changes to the existing environment.

Improvement of daily security management
The timely delivery of the end-of-day prices as well as of changes to basic data and corporate actions are of paramount importance for the day-to-day security processing. Banque de Luxembourg now obtains all pricing information, static data and corporate actions messages through VDF. GAIN Data Management provides end-of-day valuation prices, fiscal prices and end-of-year prices as well as coupons and dividend data from VDF directly into Olympic. Moreover, back office employees receive reports for all security events, such as general meetings or splits and reports for all daily changes of static data. These reports are both being printed and archived electronically so that a history of events can be viewed on-screen.

By using the possibility to import and process bank internal data within GAIN, Banque de Luxembourg was able to create tailor-made reports on their own where all VDF messages were enriched with internal client data – like client name, position volumes and more – in order to have reports ready to be sent to the corresponding client.

Automatic opening of instruments into Olympic
Whenever a bank adds a new instrument to its portfolio, it must first be opened in the banking application, in the case of Banque de Luxembourg, Olympic. For this purpose, banking applications demand a set of mandatory fields which are still often entered manually by an employee in the back office department.

The ad-hoc opening feature of GAIN delivers all necessary fields from a data feed without manual intervention. In the course of processing the Telekurs data, several VDF code domains are being mapped to Olympic code domains with the mapping engine of the GAIN DataDesktop. GAIN finally creates the necessary output file and transfers it to Olympic. This ensures significant time and cost savings for the bank and reduces the risk of flawed input.

Continuous improvements in STP
As a next phase, Banque de Luxembourg plans an even deeper automation of financial data processing. Aligned with the EU-Savings Tax Directive, all relevant data for interest bearing securities and funds are planned to be automated into Olympic. Further reports (EU interest income taxation/Fund self-declaration) will be added to the existing reports in use.

A further step towards an even higher STP grade shall be achieved through the automated integration of rating data, guarantor and issuer data as well as high-volume corporate actions. By using the existing multi data feed feature of the GAIN DataDesktop, future extensions might also target feeding additional sources through the same interface into Olympic. An outlook on the planned future architecture might give the following picture.

About Banque de Luxembourg
Banque de Luxembourg is located in Luxembourg and has been specialising in wealth management as well as in investment advice since 1920. The bank's expertise and services are offered for both private investors and asset management professionals.

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AIM Software
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