The Electronic Trade Confirmation (ETC) solution automates the reconciliation/matching of unmatched trades received from front-office systems with contract notes received from the brokers. The solution has modules for each of the asset classes (Equities, Bonds, Money Market and Derivatives). Interfaces have been created to automate the import and processing of contract notes where these are available in electronic formats e.g. Equities (Oasys or Swift), Derivatives and Bonds. User interfaces are also available for manual capturing of contract notes received via Fax or other non-electronic medium.

The Slams – BDA Integration Solution Set automates the manual process of determining daily securities borrowing and related collateral requirements, based on Slams positions and the holdings and trades recorded on the JSE Securities Exchange’s BDA system. Resultant borrow transactions can be automatically processed onto the BDA system thus eliminating manual capture.

Main Benefits and functions:

• Accuracy in the identification of short sale transactions and whether “held” shares are available in related client accounts,
• Assurance that securities borrowing and related collateral requirements are valid and accurate,
• Accuracy in determining the extent of loan and collateral returns,
• Reduction in administrative effort and time associated with the securities borrowing process,
• Reduction in JSE penalties relating to short sales and associated cover,
• Accurate reports that can be used as a basis for processing transactions within Slams,
• Elimination of manual capture of borrow transactions.

The Slams – SAFE and SWIFT Integration Modules allows for straight through processing of settlement message information between Slams and the South African Financial Instruments Real-time Electronic Settlement (SAFIRES) system’s front-end (SAFE) and the SWIFT network.

Main Benefits and functions:

• Elimination of time and effort required in the recapture of SLB deals within the SAFE front-end and the automation of the generation of SWIFT messages based on predefined rules.
• Utilising the SAFE system in conjunction with Slams dramatically reduces settlement costs associated with securities lending transactions.
• The single point of capture for instructions reduces the potential for human error and caters for the automatic update of a loan’s settlement status within Slams.

Custody Com Integration Module caters for the generation of settlement messaging files that are compatible for import into Standard Banks Safe Custody system, thus allowing for the reduction of time and error associated with manual capture.

Electronic Trade Settlement (ETS) is the automated communication and reconciliation of settlement instructions between the fund manager and the respective custodians. We offer a solution whereby settlement information is extracted from the back-office system, business rules applied to the data (validation, enrichment and routing information) and the relevant Swift settlement messages created. The solution also provides for the import of Swift acknowledgement messages and updating of the relevant record statuses.

Hermes API's

API for Orders and Executions (Private information)

Hermes connect provides an open API to the trading services of Hermes SETS solution. This API enables the broker to run external trading applications without the need to write directly to the exchange specified API. Benefits include:

• Open API - The API is accessible via Microsoft SQL stored procedures.
• Persistence and queuing - With Talaria DB on top of Microsoft's SQL technology the solution is able to provide the intersession persistence of orders and trades, obviating the need for the client application to perform this role.
• Supports the full range of message types required to effectively trade on JSE SETS.
• Reduced Exchange dependency - Exchanges tend to adapt their trading practices and API's. The Talaria DB can buffer a broker from all but the most fundamental of changes.
• Clients can also integrate Talaria DB into in-house systems such as Risk Management, Surveillance, Management reporting and private client trading.

Public API

Hermes data monitors and persists all broadcast message flows from the exchange, and as such provides an interface that allows developers to gain access to public information contained in the API for use in third-party applications and websites.

We offer a Swift adapter as part of our Connex product suite. It provides functionality for the creation and parsing of Swift messages, validation of each message according to Swift standards and the conversion of Swift to XML or XML to Swift. The use of XML structures enables us to cater effectively for complex message hierarchies like repeating blocks within blocks.