SmartStream has released the latest version of its reconciliation application, Corona.
Smartstream – clearly no slouch when it comes to hyperbole – describes Corona 7.0 as “the biggest release ever produced by the company.” It says that the latest version includes a number of functional and technical developments.
“We are confident that the wealth of new functionality combined with the products proven track record will be compelling to new and existing customers alike,” says Wolfgang Prinz, Corona Product Manager. “Corona 7.0 continues to deliver unrivalled matching rates as well as automated exception management to help users reduce risk and gain greater control over their transaction lifecycles.”
Corona 7.0 includes enhancements to Corona Cash, Corona Securities, Corona Confirmations and Corona Intra-day for the reconciliation of accounts, securities, forex, money market and derivative messages as well as cash messages. The enhanced solution includes Corona Investigations, which automates the processing of exceptions and Corona Active, the system-wide risk management monitor.
New functionality delivered with version 7.0 includes Corona Generic, Corona Corporate Actions and Corona WebConnect. Corona 7.0 also offers new and existing customers an Enterprise Edition, which Smartstream says its designed for banks with high transaction volumes and comprehensive functional requirements Corona Generic, delivered in Corona 7.0, provides what Smartstream calls an `Anything to anything’ capability for reconciliation – giving users the opportunity to manage non-standard reconciliations.
“Whenever you have a standardised financial instrument it makes sense to adopt a standards based product for its reconciliation, for example, Corona Cash,” explains Prinz. “However, as customers move to deploying a `Recs Everywhere’ strategy – where reconciliations are used across the enterprise and throughout the lifecycle of a transaction – they increasingly look to manage non-standard reconciliations. Corona Generic is `agnostic’ in terms of its ability to take in different feeds and is capable of working across the entire range of financial instruments. For example it could match MT950 cash messages to MT300 FX confirmations to check the cash settlement eliminating that transaction from the risk position. This highly generic product capability enables it to work across multiple systems, ensuring STP and status progress throughout the entire lifecycle of the transaction while automatically identifying any breaks that occur.”
Smartstream says a lot of firms are starting to migrate from batch to real-time processing in order to minimise the risk associated with missing or manual intraday report processing. Corona 7.0 has an Intra-day module that aims to solve this problem.
“The FX market is a great example of a market that is increasingly reliant upon intraday reconciliation,” says Prinz. “CLS members as well as 3rd parties need to be able to carry out intraday reconciliations in order to ensure that their accounts are covered sufficiently so they avoid intraday interest payments. However, the FX market is not unique, other sectors of the financial services industry are also being driven by market initiatives such as Basel II, Real Time Nostro or STEP2 to use intraday reconciliations. Corona Intra-day provides a real time reconciliation solution to provide intraday liquidity management and risk management across all sectors of the industry.”
Corona 7.0 also offers Corona Corporate Actions, which manages the scheduling and reconciliation of corporate actions. The module is ISO 15022-compliant, enabling the solution to load corporate actions SWIFT messages and alternative formats. It automatically creates diary entries from incoming notifications, manages the instruction and then tracks and records the status and confirmation of the Corporate Action. The module is fully integrated with the alerting and exception management facilities of Corona.
All modules delivered with Corona 7.0 can now be accessed through a browser based, user interface called Corona WebConnect.
“The wealth of functionality that SmartStream have delivered in Corona 7.0 will ensure that the product remains the market leading integrated transaction lifecycle management solution,” concludes Prinz. “By working closely with our large, global customer base and specifically a number of strategic Beta customers we are confident that Corona 7.0 will continue to deliver unrivalled matching rates and allow customers complete transaction visibility and control.”