Modernising the migration strategy of a large investment bank requires a wide range of specialist skills. The ability to engage stakeholders is definitely among them.
The challenge
Our client, a tier 1 investment bank, had embarked upon a rationalisation of its legal entities. They invited us to deliver a detailed task list and execution plan for the client’s migration of OTC and listed derivatives client clearing services. This involved over 20 CCPs and exchanges and including multiple products.
Our brief required us to analyse clearing and onboarding tasks from different sources and across numerous projects, and to assess the issues surrounding the migration of the client’s clearing accounts.
Ultimately, our stakeholder engagement skills would be fully employed as we were required to interview and navigate a diverse stakeholder list based in several separate locations.
Our approach
We started by reviewing the client’s list of tasks for transitioning derivatives clearing venues from one legal entity to another. This enabled us to compare with the client’s migration task list and identify gaps to produce a comprehensive task list. We then performed an in-depth assessment of the task list for OTC and listed transitions, which enabled us to produce an execution plan that included indicative costs.
In addition, we reviewed the client clearing migration with regards to compliance, and documented international client clearing trade booking models from a legal entity perspective.
Our impact
Our team’s direct experience, plus the insight we provided from our extensive contact list within CCPs and exchanges around the world had a positive impact upon the client’s migration process.
Crucial to the outcome was our decision and ability to validate the migration process across all stakeholders. This gave the client firm confidence in our recommendations. That, coupled with the clear understanding of how to mitigate risks and issues we provided, meant the client could move forward with great momentum.
The client’s new-found positivity empowered them to use our recommended task list and trade booking model to increase the effectiveness of its migration strategy.
Note: This case study was first published by Catalyst prior to the Sionic merger
