Napier Park Achieves Citi Spinoff, Volcker Compliance with Sky Road
The collaborative project among Napier Park and Sky Road's technology teams allows the newly separate alternative asset manager to comply with the Volcker Rule well ahead of its July 2014 deadline, by migrating its trading operational systems to an independent datacenter and taking over daily IT support from its previous backers at Citi.
"The relationship really goes back further even than CCA, to when some of Napier Park's principals, including COO Michael Williams, were at Carlton Hill Global Capital. The big change in the past year was simply the scope," says Eiman Abdelmoneim, Sky Road's director of product strategy. "That broader, core support includes Napier Park's front- and back-office systems, market data interfaces, trading and reconciliation flow with its prime brokers and fund administrators, as well as risk processing. But both partners got into this with an acknowledgement that to achieve full Volcker compliance, it takes more than just pure technology alone."
Key Dynamic
Napier Park completed its legal separation from Citi in February of this year, but Abdelmoneim says a broader combination of people, processes, and IT is involved the switch, which can only be successfully achieved by first taking a step back to examine both sides of the spinoff.
"The key dynamic with Volcker is the timeline, and the end objective is continuity," he says. "You have to start with the end-user, what they're doing, why, and who they're interacting with, and then determine how the technology facilitates that, or the action they'd like to complete. So these projects vary greatly. There is a technical impact, in so much as when a fund operates within the walls of a larger entity, it might come to rely on certain systems and processes that are proprietary within the bank to drive certain strategies, and if those are located within the bank's other business lines, they might not be able to move outside as easily. Each case, in that sense, is different, and will therefore have to do with the parent entity [in this case, Citi] as much as they do with the new one."
Napier Park's COO Williams, meanwhile, says Sky Road's managed services model will help extend the partnership further down the line. "In light of the rapid delivery requirements, we needed a partner with both the domain expertise and track record of managing and developing trading platforms end to end. Sky Road was a critical part of the team that delivered ahead of schedule with zero disruption to our business processes, and as Napier Park continues to grow, we are confident that Sky Road will enable us to build upon and streamline our trading and risk platforms to best serve our investors."
As for similar spinoff implementations leading up to next July's deadline, Abdelmoneim has few doubts that they'll be growing, too. "We absolutely expect to see more," he says.
Only users who have a paid subscription or are part of a corporate subscription are able to print or copy content.
To access these options, along with all other subscription benefits, please contact info@waterstechnology.com or view our subscription options here: http://subscriptions.waterstechnology.com/subscribe
You are currently unable to print this content. Please contact info@waterstechnology.com to find out more.
You are currently unable to copy this content. Please contact info@waterstechnology.com to find out more.
Copyright Infopro Digital Limited. All rights reserved.
As outlined in our terms and conditions, https://www.infopro-digital.com/terms-and-conditions/subscriptions/ (point 2.4), printing is limited to a single copy.
If you would like to purchase additional rights please email info@waterstechnology.com
Copyright Infopro Digital Limited. All rights reserved.
You may share this content using our article tools. As outlined in our terms and conditions, https://www.infopro-digital.com/terms-and-conditions/subscriptions/ (clause 2.4), an Authorised User may only make one copy of the materials for their own personal use. You must also comply with the restrictions in clause 2.5.
If you would like to purchase additional rights please email info@waterstechnology.com
More on Trading Tech
Interop after acquisitions remains daunting for buyers
Executives from a variety of vendors speaking at WFIC explained why desktop interoperability is important and why progress has been slow.
Should banks risk lightning hitting twice for CrowdStrike?
Bank tech teams divided on whether to give security vendor a second chance after update crash.
Northern Trust adds fixed-income capabilities for outsourced trading in Asia-Pacific
The custodian bank now offers 24/6 fixed-income trading coverage with desks in Chicago, London, and Sydney.
South Africa’s equity markets court HFTs with tech upgrades
Competition for flow has driven innovation in connectivity, risk, and data provision.
Dealer relief at delays to Refinitiv Matching’s tech migration
First phase of replatforming for Swiss spot pairs set to be pushed to mid-2025.
Kepler Cheuvreux builds proprietary execution platform with Adaptive
The broker wants to move away from third-party technologies as DORA’s risk management requirements could make vendor relationships more cumbersome.
Let’s grow the third-party risk playbook – CME security chief
The CrowdStrike outage has highlighted the need for the financial sector to adjust its game plan.
Facing platform shutdown, former IEX Cloud head buys its assets in 11th-hour bid
Tim Baker, Pedro Aguayo, and a silent partner have come together to purchase IEX Cloud’s assets days before the exchange was to retire all its products on August 31.