WatersTechnology Asia Awards 2020: Best Back-Office Platform—Torstone Technology

Torstone Technology wins the best back-office platform category in the inaugural WatersTechnology Asia Awards, thanks to its Torstone Platform, which some WatersTechnology readers might remember as Torstone Inferno. The Torstone platform is a cloud-based, post-trade solution used by banks, security houses and large buy-side institutions for all transactions, from trade capture through to accounting and settlement, and everything in between.

Gordon Russell, head of Asia at Torstone Technology, describes what makes the firm’s back-office platform unique: “First is the fact that it works across multiple asset classes, entities and functions,” he says. “Over the years, businesses have looked to consolidate their post-trade processing capabilities, driven by the need to reduce their technology footprints, costs, and operational risks, all while delivering superior customer service for their clients.”

With regulatory concerns growing across all industries, generating a consolidated view of positions across asset classes has become mandatory for most organizations, and the Torstone Platform enables exactly that. The other advantage is that the platform is modular, allowing clients to solve tactical business problems in a relatively quick and cost-effective way by implementing only the modules they require. “We provide a cloud-based, hosted solution and we work closely with our clients to reduce their technology footprints and costs,” Russell explains. “A high degree of disaster recovery has also been built into that process. With current market conditions where working remotely is the new norm, we help clients achieve this.”

Torstone places its clients at the center of its hosted solutions. According to Russell, in Asia, it focuses on Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, while its philosophy is to always have local expertise in the markets in which it operates, which helps it respond to local clients’ specific needs.

Russel explains that Torstone maintains a presence in its key markets even though its competitors continue to offshore their technical support to low-cost centers. This, he says, leads to higher levels of support from Torstone and a greater understanding of local market issues around products, regulations and reporting obligations, among others.

Torstone is changing the way banks view their middle- and back-office operations and this award recognizes the impact that the Torstone Platform has had on their business. Moving from a siloed, legacy system to an open and agile post-trade cloud infrastructure platform makes sense for large organizations, and helping clients with this transition without disrupting their day-to-day operations remains a key focus for Torstone.