Waters Rankings 2014: Best Complex Event Processing Solution Provider — Software AG

The applications of CEP in financial markets have been well documented over the years, from its uses in fraud analytics through to foreign-exchange (FX) e-commerce, algorithmic trading, and market surveillance, to name a few. Where Apama differentiates itself from the small but intensely competitive handful of rivals, however, is through its built-in support for these different functions. With the CEP engine at its core, it stretches through to an out-of-the-box solution for monitoring insider trading, front running and other issues associated with market abuse. On the fraud side, it analyzes deal cancels, amends and use-of-error codes; and employs trend analysis to combat rogue trading. On the pre-trade front, prize and size parameters, positions and limits, and order-to-trade ratios are crunched in real time, while it factors in protections against money laundering by monitoring third-party payments, deposits and withdrawals, limit alerts, and other associated areas.

There are other CEP technologies serving the capital markets that handle these functions with similar aplomb—there are numerous documented use-cases of CEP engines baked into proprietary surveillance platforms at exchanges and brokers, in addition to underpinning risk management frameworks at investment banks and some of the larger buy-side firms. But what sets Apama apart is its new home in the Software AG stable. Now it is far more than simply another CEP offering—it is, for example, able to leverage a number of existing Software AG technologies, like sophisticated in-memory data management functionality courtesy of the Terracotta platform, designed specifically to help firms manage and analyze very large data sets. While big data as a term is increasingly treated with mistrust, few can argue that sophisticated tools to get more out of existing data are becoming prerequisites for virtually all financial services organizations. Apama has consolidated and continued its reputation as the leading force in this field by keeping CEP at the heart of the enterprise, and continuing to evolve the technology in concert with its clients’ needs.