BST Awards 2019: Best buy-side collateral management tool—CloudMargin

After a brief hiatus, CloudMargin is once again the winner of the best collateral management tool category. The vendor has won this award four of the last five years, with TriOptima winning in 2018.

When it comes to collateral management, the need for straight-through processing (STP) is abundant. Take, for example, the Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR), which are set to go into force under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). Some 1,000 firms are struggling with how best to comply, which involves smart decision-making, standardized approaches, and prudent operational risk management to meet these and other evolving requirements, says CloudMargin CEO Stuart Connolly, who joined the firm from TriOptima in June.

“Technology continues to present challenges of fragmentation, constant change and silos that often impede efficiency,” he says. “Cost challenges remain a concern, with the need to fund initial margin, compete effectively and limit drag on the portfolios. In order to achieve STP, clients must ensure efficiency of their teams, address pressure for headcount management and, again, overcome silo barriers.”

As the company’s name hints, its offering is cloud-based. Most notable for CloudMargin is the partnerships it’s building in the industry. For example, in July it announced a strategic partnership with AcadiaSoft that will allow AcadiaSoft to white-label the CloudMargin platform, thus establishing an end-to-end solution addressing all agreement, risk and collateral management needs in one place.

“CollateralManager, powered by CloudMargin, will be AcadiaSoft’s next-generation solution, integrated into AcadiaSoft’s new AcadiaPlus platform, giving cost-efficient, easy access to both of our firms’ award-winning solutions via a single sign-on to one platform,” Connolly says. “We believe this collaboration between two firms that traditionally competed is transformational for the industry.”

Also this year, CloudMargin announced that it had signed Deutsche Bank, which is working with the vendor “to transform its collateral management program and embrace the cloud.”