Post-trade services provider Omgeo, a wholly owned subsidiary of the DTCC, reports that Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) has become the first global custodian bank to go live on Omgeo’s new GC Direct-enabled Alert service.
The Omgeo Alert GC Direct offering is intended to improve “the management of account information and standing settlement instruction (SSI) data related to the trade settlement processes between global custodians, funds and investment managers, and is the main goal of the SSI utility,” Omgeo says in a statement.
The enhanced Omgeo service facilitates the communication of custodian sourced, securities and market practice group (SMPG) and Alert-compliant SSI data by connecting BBH’s central SSI repository to Alert via ISO 20022 standardized messaging, say Omgeo officials. The new GC Direct capabilities also allow custodians to manage data exceptions on behalf of their clients.
“We’re pleased to work with Omgeo using GC Direct in our efforts to deliver improved operational and cost efficiencies to our clients and their investment managers,” says Ray Tyrrell, a senior vice president at BBH, in a prepared statement.
“Global custodians are enabled to update, maintain, and manage SSI data electronically for the first time,” according to Omgeo. “As part of this evolution, future phases of the SSI utility include support for collateral SSIs as well as an enhanced API [application programming interface] for brokers, asset managers and third-party transaction services to retrieve SSI information in real-time during trade processing, reducing the need to maintain disparate databases.”
Omgeo officials also note that, while “many clients and their investment managers maintain their SSI data manually,” under the GC Direct agreement, “BBH is able to maintain and electronically provide SSI data to its clients and/or their investment managers through the use of GC Direct capabilities in Alert.” The Alert online database maintains and communicates account information and SSIs.
“We anticipate further participation from the custodian bank and asset management community and look forward to continuing to work with the wider industry to realize the full benefits of the SSI utility, says Paula Arthus, president and CEO of Omgeo, in a prepared statement.
BBH, a privately held financial institution that traces its founding to 1818, operates in 18 locations, according to officials, including New York, Boston, Beijing, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Dublin, Grand Cayman, Hong Kong, Kraków, London, Luxembourg, Nashville, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Wilmington and Zürich.
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