SmartStream is a recognised leader in financial transaction management solutions that enables firms to improve operational control, reduce costs, build new revenue streams, mitigate risk and comply accurately with regulations.

By helping its customers through their transformative digital strategies, SmartStream provides a range of solutions for the transaction lifecycle with artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies embedded - which can also be deployed in the cloud or as managed services.

As a result, more than 2,000 clients—including 70 of the world’s top 100 banks, rely on SmartStream Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions to deliver greater efficiency to their operations.

For more information about SmartStream, visit www.smartstream-stp.com

How SmartStream's managed services is transforming banking in Asia Pacific

Managed services streamlines operations and cuts costs by eliminating manually intensive processes.

Gone are the days when banks needed to shoulder hefty charges just to maintain high-performance data centres. Traditionally, banks had to rely on data centres and often ended up paying for high-performance hardware that remained dormant over 80% of the time. Cloud-based outsourcing and managed services changes the landscape by allowing banks to mutualise their processes with similarly-situated institutions.

“What we call managed services is in fact a mutualization of day-to-day activities. Our clients are mutualizing the processes so they can share the costs and our specialized resources to achieve quality output,” explained Nick Smith, Global Head of Managed Services at SmartStream. “Moving to the cloud provides financial institutions significantly more flexibility and scalability. It means that you only pay for high-performance hardware for the time that you use it, and you're not paying for hardware when you don't need it.”

By moving processes to cloud platforms, financial institutions can benefit from high-performing technology at a fraction of the cost. Once they adopt managed services, they benefit from the mutualization of sharing those processes across multiple clients. “For instance, our clients no longer need dedicated applications, and they no longer need dedicated IT hardware personnel. Our clients no longer need database administrators because they share those same specialist resources across the entire client base,” Smith noted.

At its core, managed services uses artificial intelligence to reduce the amount of manual effort required to deliver quality service. As a result, banks and other financial institutions can deliver service at a much higher level of quality at a lower operating cost. “Artificial intelligence in managed services is a classic game changer. What managed service is bringing to the table is that the client no longer has to worry about their day-to-day business. Our clients can focus on client-facing activities that differentiate them and developing revenue streams themselves, because managed services will manage the day-to-day logistics of running the business on their behalf,” Smith added.

Driving growth and transformation
In Asia, banks are not only looking for solutions to boost revenue; they are also looking for ways to launch products to market more quickly. However, traditional ways of scaling up operations often get in the way of this goal.

For instance, one of SmartStream’s clients is a credit card provider targeting retail clients. As the clients sales increased, the client’s hardware was not scalable which had a direct impact upon operating costs, revenue generation and margin.. Using SmartStream’s cloud platform provides almost instant scalability and controlled operating costs. Additionally, bringing that scalability to market was significantly quicker using SmartStream’s Software as a Service platform.

Another of SmartStream’s managed services clients is a global investment bank. When they became a client of SmartStream, the company was able to reduce their IT application support resources by 50%. “This is simply because we’re not a generalist provider of consultants.” Smith noted. “We have real specialist knowledge in the marketplace that we operate in. And using that specialist knowledge is what enables us to do things at a significantly higher quality level and much more efficiently than other groups operating in this space.”


Providing customised specialist knowledge
In order to successfully migrate to the cloud, banks need to have a change in mindset about their day-to-day operations and processes. “What they need to understand is they’re outsourcing to the process that they give us, so they can focus on more value-adding activities.” Smith notes.

A key challenge, however, is that people often struggle to relinquish control. Managers worry that if somebody else is managing their daily operations, then they carry a higher level of risk. This is why SmartStream operates under a policy of complete transparency and clearly defined KPIs. “We provide transparency to the most senior management as to the day-to-day activities of the performance of their business. We can do this because SmartStream knows and understands the space that we're operating in, and we know how to deliver true value,” Smith said.

Moving forward, banks are more likely to re-engineer their processes and adopt managed services in order to boost revenues and deliver better products. “It’s about changing the mindset and the culture, so that people understand that they can step back from worrying about the day-to-day activity, because SmartStream is going to take that to the next level on their behalf,” Smith said.

Connect Now

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Other Articles

SmartStream launch high performance, AI enabled platform to meet client demands for managing complex data

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions provider today announces the launch of TLM Aurora Universal Data Control - driven by client demand - it is the only solution of its type to match any reconciliations data, from basic to complex matching by enabling AI, machine learning and cloud-native technology.

SmartStream steps ahead with new industry digital payments solution

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions provider, announced the launch of TLM Aurora, the industry’s leading reconciliation platform.

Bringing automation and increased efficiency to post-trade processing in Asia

SmartStream’s post-trade processing solution eliminates downstream exceptions through enabling real-time processes based on verified data.

SmartStream reveal their latest API suite with a complete range of reference data services

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Reference Data Utility (RDU) solutions provider, today announces the launch of its Application Programming Interface (API) suite – for quicker access to services providing accurate data, with improved customer service, operational efficiency, greater agility and competitiveness. The new fully comprehensive API service will benefit financial institutions by saving huge amounts on infrastructure costs, as well as an affordable service which is straightforward to deploy.

SmartStream reveals new brand identity

This reflects the company’s mission to spearhead technological innovation.

Digital payments driving the trend in APAC market

As digital payments take the centre stage, the complexity of transactions is also increasing. Santosh Tripathy explains how providers can address these using SmartStream’s operational control platforms.

Digital payments automation: What now?

As digital payments push out cash amidst the pandemic, providers look to SmartStream Technologies, for an automation advantage. Santosh Tripathy talks about the backbone needed for would-be players.

Asian banks to adopt cloud-based managed services for efficient back-office operations

Managing back-office trading processes are becoming more complex with the twin pressures of increasing regulation and reduced headcount, which requires banks to reexamine their operations, according to SmartStream’s global product manager of managed services Peter Hainz.

Banks embrace corporate actions automation with SmartStream's award-winning platform

When a European company was struggling with a corporate actions conundrum of spending four hours each day collating new event notifications that have been received into the organisation, it turned to SmartStream Technologies for a solution that would enable them to automate the painstaking process. The firm implemented SmartStream’s TLM Corporate Actions platform, which then drastically cut down the processing time compared to the previous manual system that was bogged down by an influx of printed SWIFT messages, fax messages, emails and Excel spreadsheet reports.

New technologies transform data validation and reconciliations in banking

AI and Machine Learning (ML) technologies improve operational efficiency and decision making for middle and back office.

SmartStream’s AI solution supports continuous streaming of reconciliations

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions provider announces the launch of SmartStream Air Version 4, which provides the continuous streaming of reconciliations using the latest AI cloud-native technology. The new version will manage large volumes of data in a variety of non-standard formats and structures, it will check for accuracy and completeness on a continuous basis, without the need to reload unmatched items.

SmartStream bolsters APAC team with two new hires to meet increasing demand for client support and delivery

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions provider today announces two senior appointments - Romain Rohee, Regional Head for Client Services and Delivery and Amol Deep, Delivery Engagement Director – both hires will strengthen the regional team in areas of solution delivery and client engagements.   Romain Rohee will lead and set direction on all product delivery, with a key focus on customer satisfaction and relationships across all stages of the client lifecycle. Prior to joining SmartStream, he was the APAC Head of Operations for ITRS Group and led their managed and professional services teams. Before this, he was at two other organisations managing process implementations and integration for Société Générale and Orsyp Group, globally. 

Addressing operational challenges in financial institutions through effective managed services

SmartStream Head of Business Development, Managed Services Mark Morris provided insights on the need to upgrade systems and create efficiencies to reduce costs and risks.

SmartStream steers new intelligent design for exceptions management

SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM®) solutions provider, today announces new intelligent exceptions management design for its cloud-native AI powered SmartStream Air solution – enabling the process of identification, prioritisation, allocation, and audit to be further simplified.

Understanding the benefits of a robust intraday liquidity management system

Managing an effective intraday liquidity system doesn’t have to be a tedious and drawn-out process.