BST Awards 2019: Best buy-side IBOR platform—SimCorp

While its competitors might focus on multiple disparate systems supporting different asset classes, SimCorp Dimension is a single, integrated, multi-asset class portfolio management platform.

This goes some way to setting Dimension apart from other portfolio management platforms in what is an intensely competitive market, according to Mark Baker, product portfolio manager at SimCorp. He says the Danish buy-side specialist has also differentiated itself through its core books and records system, which has helped land the firm the best buy-side IBOR title in these awards for the sixth consecutive year.

Baker says that having everything in a single platform reduces integration costs and risks, while delivering improved time to market. “We support all asset classes on one platform, and we are able to expose that data in real time across the platform, so we don’t really have loose integration or file-based integration—we have real integration across our platform,” he says.

According to Baker, SimCorp is investing in the product to support customers in reducing their costs and associated risks. A key challenge currently facing the firm’s clients is the onslaught of regulatory changes such as the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR). Under SFTR, a large number of SimCorp’s customers will be subject to uncleared margin rules, requiring them to exchange initial margin on their bilateral derivatives book with counterparties. “We continue to work with the regulators to understand their legal opinions, which are based on their decision-making,” Baker explains. “And then we are looking at how we will enhance the product, or what data elements we need to take out of the product to submit to the relevant trade repositories.”

The company is focusing on improved support for its managed cloud-based platform, as well as a more outcome-based offering, which Baker says is a combination of product and service, to deliver a defined outcome to customers.