Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Calypso Technology Appoints Sean McDermott as Regional Head of Sales, Asia-Pacific
Mr. McDermott joined Calypso in 2004 and during his tenure successfully sold to customers in Japan, South Korea and Singapore. He has also presided over substantial growth in Calypso’s Tokyo operation, which has more than tripled in size in terms of headcount over the past four years. Prior to joining Calypso, Mr. McDermott was Country Manager in Japan at both Wall Street Systems and FNX Limited. Mr. McDermott has lived and worked in Japan for over twenty years and has a solid background of working with financial institutions in Japan and across Asia-Pacific.
Arnie Papp, previously responsible for Calypso’s Asia-Pacific operations, has assumed responsibility for management and coordination of Calypso’s global team of presales market specialists. The creation of a global presales team with Mr. Papp’s oversight is a strategic move designed to build centers of excellence for each of the product groups which can be traded in Calypso, and to support the product management team in keeping Calypso at the cutting edge of market developments. Mr. Papp also reports to Mr. Hamman and is based in San Francisco, California.
Mr. Hamman comments, “Sean has brought extensive knowledge and experience of the Asia-Pacific market to Calypso, and we are delighted to have him lead the effort to expand our APAC footprint and continue serving our regional customers. Calypso has entered a significant new phase of growth by serving buy-side institutions and we see huge potential in this market in Asia-Pacific. We are confident that Calypso’s Asia-Pacific operations will continue on their current growth path under Sean’s supervision and into our expanded target market.”
Calypso has experienced great success in Asia-Pacific, with revenues growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of over 80% for the last five years. Approximately 25% of Calypso’s total headcount is based within the region, with the vast majority of those employees in service-oriented roles for Asian customers.
Sean McDermott says, “Since opening for business in the region in 2001, Calypso has steadily built up a customer base comprised of the region’s leading banks. As part of our next growth phase, Calypso is now servicing a broader range of institutions including hedge funds, asset managers and insurance companies with our award-winning trading and risk management platform. Our ability to deliver the required functionality quickly using our rapid implementation solution, Calypso Fast-Track, means that we have a compelling offering for our Asian clients.”
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Calypso Integrates Copp Clark Professional Calendar Definitions into Calypso Fast-Track
San Francisco, CA, September 17, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that it has integrated Copp Clark Calendar data definitions with its Calypso Fast-Track, a pre-configured application environment designed to expedite deployment of Calypso’s trading, risk and operations application. The native interface will enable Calypso users to seamlessly subscribe to an entire library of calendar files covering currency non-clearing days, bank/financial center holidays and exchange holidays. Copp Clark is a recognized provider of authoritative reference data on holiday observances affecting global financial markets as well as publications and software products for the trading community.
“We are excited to have partnered with the leading publisher of financial trading and settlement calendars,” states Gerard Rafie, VP of Marketing at Calypso. “Providing connectivity to leading market standard providers is an important objective of the Calypso Fast-Track team whose sole objective is to deliver faster, more efficient implementations.” Calypso Fast-Track is a product that provides a speed-to-market application environment designed to reduce implementation time and cost with pre-configured market data and interfaces, while providing full documentation, methodology and training.
“We are very pleased to be working closely with market leader Calypso Technology to provide seamless integration with our holiday data products,” comments Ron Marr, President of Copp Clark Professional. “We will continue seeking ways to simplify data maintenance and delivery for our clients. We look forward to insuring the integrity of holiday calendars for customers of Fast-Track.”
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Pamplona Capital Management Selects Calypso SaaS for Credit Derivatives & Leveraged Loans
- Pamplona takes Calypso SaaS for new Credit Opportunity Fund
- First client to go live on recently launched Calypso SaaS
Vienna, Sibos, September 16, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that Pamplona Capital Management LLP (Pamplona), a London-based specialist investment manager, has selected Calypso SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) to support its newly launched credit fund. Pamplona will use Calypso SaaS as a front-to-back office solution for credit derivatives including leveraged loans, corporate and asset-backed credit.
Pamplona launched the Pamplona Credit Opportunity Fund (PCO) in September of 2008. With time to market as a key business driver, the firm was seeking a robust system that could support complex credit trading strategies and be implemented quickly. After looking at a number of systems, Pamplona selected Calypso SaaS as a turnkey solution. The hosted version of Calypso provides strong credit derivatives front office and processing capabilities, Out-of-the-box integration with leading 3rd party processing systems saves time, costs, and resources for the firm.
Pamplona also leveraged Calypso Fast-Track for ease of implementation. Calypso Fast-Track is product that provides a speed-to-market application environment designed to reduce implementation time and cost with pre-configured market data and interfaces, while providing full documentation, methodology and training.
“We see great opportunities in the credit markets and needed a solution that would both support our current complex trading strategies and scale with us as we grow,” says Yves Leysen, Partner at Pamplona. “With PCO launching in September, we chose Calypso because we recognized it as the market leader in credit. The SaaS version of Calypso was perfect for us because we can leverage both the sophistication of the Calypso platform and the short time-to-market and resource savings of a hosted solution.”
“We’re very excited to be announcing the first client to go live on Calypso SaaS,” says Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. “We are committed to helping firms like Pamplona get funds up and running quickly and inexpensively so they can take advantage of market opportunities.”
Monday, September 15, 2008
Calypso Launches Second Generation of Calypso Fast-Track
- Calypso Fast-Track solution comprises best practices for implementation
- New instruments and modules added in new version
- Back-office streamlining highlighted
- Growing support from industry experts
Vienna, Sibos, September 15, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced enhancements to Calypso Fast-Track. Launched in 2007, Calypso Fast-Track is a pre-configured application environment designed to expedite deployment of Calypso’s trading, risk and operations application. The second generation includes enhanced accounting, reporting and additional instruments and currencies.
Calypso Fast-Track provides a foundation of proven solutions to the issues commonly faced during the initial stages of deployment. Calypso has experienced high demand for Calypso Fast-Track from customers requiring implementation within specific timelines and budgets. Because Calypso Fast-Track provides a pre-configured solution, customers are able to quickly realize the benefits of how Calypso’s front-to-back, cross-asset solutions work within their enterprise. Calypso Fast-Track also comes with full documentation and corresponding training courses to address any configuration issue. Customers can utilize the training to help teams and new hires quickly come up to speed on Calypso’s trading and risk management system.
Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc says, “Over the last few years, the markets have matured considerably and customers are ready to embrace the concept of best practices in the implementation of trading solutions. With the help of our consulting partners, Calypso has compiled the knowledge accrued from ten years of working with top financial institutions, along with the newest innovations in trading applications, and integrated these into the Calypso Fast-Track offering.”
The second generation of Calypso Fast-Track features a number of enhancements, including:
- Continuing addition of new asset classes and modules that can be implemented using Calypso Fast-Track
- Enhanced DTCC workflow
- Full profit and asset accounting
- More robust risk reporting
Rapid advances to Calypso Fast-Track have been enabled by wide adoption of the product by new and existing customers, as well as independent implementation partners. As a leading Calypso implementer, IBM has made considerable investments in the product’s development, committing resources to help with design and validation. “Calypso enjoys a critical advantage over its competitors with this product,” states Sanny Makki, Partner – Financial Markets at IBM. “Financial institutions are much savvier today when evaluating enterprise trading and risk systems, with more emphasis on scrutinizing implementation risks. Calypso Fast-Track enables prospective users to accelerate implementation cycles and gain high visibility into all aspects of the implementation.”
Gerard Rafie, VP of Marketing at Calypso Technology, notes, “We have incorporated Calypso Fast-Track into our internal and customer training programs offered by Calypso University. Our professional services team is committed to applying Calypso Fast-Track to every project. Our goal is to bring what we believe are much-needed industry best practices to achieve rapid deployment and reduced implementation cost and risk.”
Calypso is unveiling the new version of Calypso Fast Track at Sibos 2008 in Vienna to highlight the solution’s ability to streamline back-office order flow. Demos will be provided. (Booth C609)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Calypso SaaS enables rapid expansion into new business areas
- Calypso SaaS offers hosted version of enterprise solution for trading, risk management and operations for derivatives and treasury products
- Rapid deployment and lower cost of ownership
San Francisco, CA, September 10, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced the launch of its SaaS (Software as a Service) offering. Calypso SaaS provides a powerful enterprise trading and risk management application for treasury and capital markets in a managed, outsourced environment. The solution will address the needs of the increasing number of financial institutions which are focusing solely on their core business by outsourcing the management of applications and infrastructure, as well as support of their technology platforms.
For trading businesses, Calypso SaaS offers the power and sophistication of the Calypso Trading and Risk Management Platform in an environment which dramatically improves time-to-market while reducing IT and infrastructure costs. It is especially beneficial for customers seeking to achieve rapid expansion into new geographies or business areas with minimal capital outlay. Built and managed by a dedicated team of product and technical specialists, Calypso SaaS allows the deployment of the full range of modules that comprise Calypso’s front-to-back, fully integrated cross-asset trading software application suite. In addition, the SaaS solution is designed for ease of deployment and maintenance, available with built-in interfaces to market standard feeds and post-trade processing services. The hosted solution also benefits users with managed upgrades, ensuring that clients always have the latest product innovations at their fingertips.
Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc, says: “While many of our clients prefer to run their technology in-house, an increasing number of prospects and clients have expressed interest in an outsourced approach. We have addressed this challenge by developing Calypso SaaS, which essentially provides firms with all the benefits of an enterprise system – a comprehensive suite of cuttingedge trading applications – without any of the traditional infrastructure investment costs and lead times. The initial response from clients has been extremely positive, with the first users already coming onboard.”
Highlights of Calypso SaaS include:
- On-demand service: Calypso SaaS customers can choose the type of service they want
- Fast time-to-market: Calypso SaaS leverages Calypso Fast-Track for implementation and leverages the knowledge and lessons learned from over 90 clients
- Real-time position management: Customers benefit from user-defined views of real-time positions and P&L
- Consolidated risk management: Customers receive real-time and consolidated views on their risk exposures across asset classes
- Secure and robust platform – Calypso SaaS provides an industrial-strength secure data center
“Calypso is dedicating extensive resources to the SaaS offering and we are excited to be meeting diverse market requirements with an alternative delivery model of our robust and sophisticated, front-to-back, cross-asset solution,” continued Mr. Marston. “Already, Calypso SaaS is generating a great deal of interest from new business initiatives looking to capitalize on dislocations within the current credit environment where time-to-market is critical.”
The Calypso Trading and Risk Management platform is used by a wide range of financial institutions including global banks, regional banks, asset managers, insurance companies and hedge funds.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Marshall & Ilsley Corporation Selects Calypso to Support Trading, Risk Management and Operations
M&I will benefit from Calypso’s front office tools for structuring products and managing real-time intraday risk as well as market risk and capital analysis. Through greater automation of processes for the front, middle and back offices, the Calypso software installation will provide M&I with the ability to trade complex products while improving efficiency and reducing operational risk and costs.
“The Calypso system will provide M&I with valuable tools that will significantly enhance our ability to provide risk management products to our clients,” said Bob Harless, senior vice president, capital markets, M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank.
“M&I selected Calypso as part of our strategy to offer our clients the best possible service,” said Gary Schnell, vice president, capital markets operations, M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank. “The combination of Calypso Technology’s partnership approach, robust functionality, front-to-back capabilities, and Calypso Fast-Track made the company and its Calypso software application the best choice to support our growing business.”
Calypso Fast-Track is a groundbreaking new software product designed to assist new and existing customers with their rapid implementation and deployment of the Calypso application. Calypso Fast-Track offers new users with the opportunity to quickly familiarize themselves with the Calypso application in a simulated live environment, providing pre-configured data ‘out-of-the-box’ within Calypso’s front to back office application, including risk management, reporting, and accounting.
“We are very pleased to be working with M&I,” says Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. “We are committed to providing a best-of-breed solution for regional banks and are looking forward to supporting M&I as they continue to grow.”
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Calypso expands into the Nordic Market
- Creates new subsidiary company and opens new office in Copenhagen, Denmark
- Growth in region facilitated by interest in Calypso Fast-Track
Stockholm, June 11, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that it continues to strengthen and build on its success in the Nordic market by opening an office in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“We are committed to offering Calypso to the Nordic market and our dedication has resulted in continuous success in the region. The time is right to invest further in the Nordic area by having a local subsidiary and office to better support our five clients across the Nordic countries,” comments Charles Marston, CEO and founder of Calypso Technology. The first Calypso Nordic client was signed in 2007. Additional clients quickly followed suit, several of which have already gone live with the Calypso system.
Mikael Lindh, Sales Manager Nordic Markets for Calypso Technology, adds: “With ten years of development invested in the Calypso application, we are well positioned to serve the diverse trading and risk management requirements of the Nordic capital markets. The system’s flexibility caters for large financial institutions trading flow products as well as sophisticated niche players within the investment management and hedge fund sector that typically trade on offering a bespoke customer service. The market is showing a strong interest in structured products linked to new innovative indexes. Risk diversification among investors is one important driver behind this trend.”
Entry in the Nordic region was also facilitated by the launch of Calypso Fast-Track, a software product designed to shorten the time to market by offering new clients a pre-configured, ‘out-of-the-box’ front-to-back office application. By providing market-tested, industry standard configuration, tools and documentation, Calypso Fast-Track enables clients to focus on defining specific regional requirements, thus reducing overall implementation time.
The Calypso Fast-Track product is particularly attractive to organizations that do not have a large IT department. “Clients can take advantage of Calypso’s best practice expertise built up in collaboration with its customers. Its pre-configured plug and play characteristic is very attractive to smaller Nordic niche players that wish to see a quick ROI,” states Lindh.
Calypso has also strengthened its capabilities in the region with local implementation partners which have undergone Calypso’s partner training program. This ensures that the partner can provide qualified personnel who are fully trained on the Calypso application. “Working with partners ensures that we can combine the Calypso skill set with in-depth local market knowledge to respond efficiently to market-specific requirements”, comments Gerard Rafie, Vice President Marketing at Calypso Technology.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
New Products and Customer Satisfaction Initiatives Launched at Calypso 2008 Customer Conference
- Calypso V10 release highlighted and new account management group announced
San Francisco, CA, June 04, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a leading global provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, unveiled its Calypso V10 product release and announced the launch of Calypso Account Management Services at its 2008 Customer Conference, held April 2008 in San Francisco, California.
Through the Account Management Services group, clients will benefit from a single dedicated Calypso point of contact. The account managers will coordinate all Calypso’s resources on behalf of clients, including access to product management, training, technology infrastructure, and the executive team. In addition, account managers will hold regular meetings with clients to communicate new developments and to facilitate their optimized Calypso product usage.
More than half of the sessions of this annual event were customer forums designed to foster open communication among the various customers on a variety of business and technical topics. In addition, Calypso product managers and engineers presented new functionality in the V10 release and product roadmaps. The new version, Version 10 incorporates significant enrichment of front office tools for structuring products and managing real-time intraday risk and P&L analysis; more robust risk management capabilities on a desk and enterprise level; and new capabilities to the Calypso Fast-Track product, shortening time-to-value during implementations.
“Calypso continues to build out a culture of customer service. Our customers are our trusted business partners who help evolve and shape the Calypso offering,” says Charles Marston, CEO and Founder of Calypso. “Transparent two-way communication is of the utmost importance to us.”
Supporting the themes of transparency and communication, this year’s Customer Conference opened the conference program to third party speakers who are essential to the Calypso ecosystem. These included speakers from the Aite Group, IBM and the TowerGroup. Presentations were also undertaken by customers, senior Calypso product managers and the management team. Calypso welcomed more than 200 attendees, representing 35 firms registered from the United States, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia.
“The mission of the Account Management Services Group is to provide ongoing consulting and continually aligning client goals and objectives with the Calypso strategy,” says Marston. “We are excited to now formalize and highlight what we have always considered to be a primary focus for us – high-quality customer service and the culture built around it in everything we do.”
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Calypso Unveils Version 10 of its Trading and Risk Management Platform
- Enhancements throughout Calypso’s Application Suite Support Capital Markets Innovation
San Francisco, April 16, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, today announced its annual major version release of the Calypso integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry. The new version, Version 10 incorporates significant enrichment of front office tools for structuring products and managing real-time intraday risk and P&L analysis; more robust risk management capabilities on a desk and enterprise level; and new capabilities to the Calypso Fast-Track product, shortening time-to-value during implementations.
“Today, financial services firms are struggling with processing backlogs created by the growing volume of increasingly complex products including treasuries and derivatives. In addition, continued manual processing is slowing innovation and creating additional costs and errors,” states Stephen Bruel, Analyst at TowerGroup.
Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso, states, “Version 10 is designed to enable Calypso users to successfully manage current market challenges and innovate to stay competitive. Additionally, clients can implement Calypso’s solutions faster than ever as we continue to build upon our Calypso Fast-Track solution with additional pre-configured environments for multiple asset classes.
New capabilities for Version 10 include:
- Enhanced, real-time intraday risk and P&L analysis - users can add their own analysis that traders configure "on the fly" - including reference entity, counterparty, strategy, sector and region - improving visibility and providing actionable information on a global, cross-asset basis. Traders can view winners and losers by strategy, reference entity and other user-defined criteria using the Calypso Workstation.
- Significantly enhanced front-office capabilities – V10 includes a variety of enhancements to help traders innovate further while improving risk management, compliance and productivity. New functionality includes a structured products packaging application, dynamic calibration, HyperSurfaces to model multidimensional market data, additional 3D graphics for modeling, and a configurable Trader Workstation. Additional product coverage includes expanded support for inflation products, repurchase agreements and several other products.
- Market risk and capital analysis – provides risk managers with greater transparency and drill-down capabilities on Value-at-Risk and stress tests with the ability to view Market Risk Capital requirements over time for any organization or business unit.
- Enhancements to streamline implementation – including more market data, currencies, countries, workflows and expanded configuration data in Calypso Fast-Track, plus new data and application migration tools.
Calypso V10 also builds on the industry-leading back office processing capabilities with enhanced cash management, a new securities financing front end application and additional interfaces to third-party payment and clearing services.
In 1998, Calypso introduced the first integrated trading software application suite designed with true front-to-back office functionality as well as cross-asset trading capabilities from the outset. Capital markets firms, including global banks, regional banks, asset managers, hedge funds and other trading institutions have increasingly adopted Calypso’s platform and help inform the direction of the new versions.
“Our clients worldwide continue to need more sophisticated trading systems in order to innovate and leverage market opportunities generated by new products,” said Marston. “Calypso’s Java-based architecture allows us to quickly introduce enhancements required by rapidly changing markets,” he continued. The Calypso software platform, originally developed over a decade ago, continues to evolve with changing market conditions and has undergone nine major releases since its inception.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Emirates NBD Selects Calypso
With the credit markets expanding rapidly in the Middle East, Emirates NBD was seeking a comprehensive cross-asset system with strong derivatives support to meet increasing client demand. After evaluating a number of systems, Emirates NBD selected Calypso Technology not only for the strength of its software platform, but also for its partnership approach.
Emirates NBD will benefit from a consolidated view of profit and loss and risk across asset classes, the ability to trade new complex structured products, and the reduction of operational risk as well as costs. Emirates NBD will be implementing the Calypso software platform to its locations within Dubai and other regional and international markets.
“In light of the increasing demand for structured products over the past year, and in line with our commitment to adopt best international practices in the banking industry, Emirates NBD has selected Calypso Technology as our business partner to provide us with a comprehensive cross-asset system. We are confident our relationship with Calypso will bring benefits to our clients, employees and shareholders”, said Abdullah Qassem, General Manager Information Technology and Operations at Emirates NBD.
“Emirates NBD is a leading bank in the Middle East and we are delighted to be helping them grow their capabilities and reach,” said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso Technology. “Our work and relationship with Emirates NBD is demonstrative of our commitment to providing financial institutions with an innovative solution that addresses all their trading requirements, particularly in this constantly evolving market.”
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Calypso Ranked as Top Solution for Credit Derivatives Second Year in a Row
- Calypso voted the #1 position in credit trading in 2007 Technology Rankings by Risk Magazine readers
- Calypso ranked in top 3 across 8 categories, including structured products, cross-asset, rates and commodities trading systems
San Francisco, January 9, 2008 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that Calypso was voted the top trading system for credit in Risk Magazine’s 2007 Technology Rankings for the second consecutive year.
Calypso’s continued leadership in credit derivatives trading, valuation and execution as well as its growing client base enabled the top ranking for credit. The rankings are based on a poll of industry participants around the world, including banks, hedge funds, pension firms, insurance companies, and corporate treasuries. Respondents were asked to vote for technology vendors that provide the best product offering based on functionality, usability, performance, return on investment, and reliability. Calypso was also ranked in the top three across the following categories:
- Commodities trading system
- Credit trading system
- Cross-asset trading system
- Rates trading system
- Structured Products trading system
- Cross-asset analytics
- Credit analytics
- IAS39 system
Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso, comments, “We are continuing to innovate on behalf of our clients and we are pleased that our dedication to this market has been recognized by Risk Magazine again this year. The success of Calypso’s solution drove substantial growth in 2007 and we are looking forward to greater progress next year.”
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Calypso Wins Financial-i Leaders in Innovation Award for 2nd Year Running
- Wins 'derivatives processing' category
San Francisco, December 18, 2007 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, is pleased to announce that it has won the ‘derivatives processing’ category of the 2007 Financial-i Leaders in Innovation awards. This is the 2nd consecutive year that Calypso has won the award.
Companies were initially chosen by Financial-i’s team of journalists and a number of analyst firms. The winners were then selected from the short-listed companies by an advisory panel comprising industry analysts and thought leaders. Key criteria in judging the awards were demonstrated innovation in the last year to solve a business challenge leading to a positive improvement for customers.
“Essentially what we were looking for are companies that have demonstrated over the last 12 months their ability to innovate, whether it is in terms of business strategy or the development of wholesale transaction banking solutions, and for that innovation to have significantly impacted customers in terms of their ability to deploy business solutions cost effectively, more readily interact and integrate them with other applications, and the ability to use these solutions to solve business specific issues or concerns,” said Anita Hawser, editor of Financial-i.
“Our philosophy has always been to innovate and fill the gaps in the market, so we are proud to have been recognized yet again with this award. We didn’t rest on our laurels after winning last year and have maintained our drive for continuous innovation,” said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. “We are committed to providing advanced solutions that help customers innovate faster, improve productivity and achieve faster time to value. With the recent launch of our groundbreaking Fast-Track implementation product, next year looks set to be a very exciting time for us.”
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Natixis Live with Calypso
- Back office processing for credit derivatives
- Handles threefold increase in volumes requiring no additional headcount
San Francisco, December 5, 2007 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that Natixis is in production with Calypso Credit Derivatives for back office processing.
Following a rigorous consultation period in which a number of solutions were considered, Natixis chose Calypso in order to automate and grow their credit business. Since installing Calypso, Natixis has increased its volumes by 300% without the need to increase headcount.
“We were looking for a system to manage one of the fastest growing markets of our business, with specific functionality to quickly bring new products to market. Calypso met and surpassed these requirements,” commented Christophe Guy, head of back office at Natixis. “The fact that we’ve been able to increase our capacity threefold without any additional staff is a significant efficiency gain for us and we anticipate further gains in the months ahead in support of our rapidly growing business.”
Natixis leverages the seamless straight-through processing architecture of the Calypso application to drive processing of a wide range of credit trades, ranging from vanilla credit default swaps to second generation synthetic products. Within the Calypso system, once a trade has been captured, the back office engine automatically manages all post-trade processes from reporting to accounting in accordance with the company’s business workflow. Instrumental to the project was the interface to the DTCC for confirmation matching and payment of credit derivative contracts. The efficiency in operations has enabled the company to significantly increase its business revenue opportunities.
“Natixis is a major player in the European banking industry, and we are pleased to see the bank achieve business growth after implementing Calypso as strategic solution for expanding and automating its credit business,” concluded Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso.
About Calypso Technology, Inc.
Calypso Technology, Inc is a global application software provider that delivers an integrated suite of trading applications to the capital markets industry. Over 80 customers, including seven of the top ten banks, use the Calypso Trading and Risk Management Platform – the first integrated application suite for derivative and treasury products.
Calypso is a registered trademark of Calypso Technology, Inc in the United States, the European Union and other jurisdictions.
About Natixis
With 23,000 employees in 68 countries, Natixis is the banking partner of businesses and institutions, and offers the five key services of corporate and investment banking, asset management, private equity and private banking, services and receivables management.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Constantia Privatbank Selects Calypso to Drive Capital Markets Expansion
- Front to back office trading and processing on multiple asset classes
- Utilizing Calypso Fast-Track for fast implementation
- Second Austrian client for Calypso
San Francisco, CA, November 21, 2007 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced that Constantia Privatbank, the leading and most successful independent private bank in Austria has selected Calypso’s cross-asset class platform for front, middle and back office.
As an upgrade from their existing in-house platform, Constantia Privatbank has adopted Calypso as a key component in their long-term strategy to expand their capital markets offering. The bank needed a platform that could meet their current demands for supporting and monitoring innovative treasury and derivative products, but also evolve along with the bank’s growing support for the capital markets. In addition to the comprehensive multi-asset and front to back functionality, Constantia Privatbank has adopted Calypso ERS (Enterprise Risk Service) for market risk and limits, and is also one of the first users of Calypso Fast-Track to facilitate rapid deployment.
Calypso was adopted following a comprehensive selection process, in which Constantia Privatbank reviewed a number of global and regional players, obtained feedback from other Calypso clients, and ran a test installation of the platform. Once chosen, installation of the platform was initiated at the bank’s headquarters in Vienna in a matter of hours.
“Implementing Calypso is a key component of our strategy to provide the best possible service to our discerning client base,” said Dr Karl Arco, Member of the Board, Constantia Privatbank. “We were particularly impressed with the flexibility of the platform, quick time to market and with Calypso Fast-Track, which included proven best-practice implementation methodologies as well as a pre-configured database. We needed a future-proof system that would evolve with our business and meets the requirements of the Austrian Legal Authorities. Calypso’s state-of-the-art, modern architecture met our needs.”
Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso, said: “We are delighted that Constantia Privatbank has chosen Calypso as strategic platform for their capital markets expansion. The Germanic region is of growing importance to Calypso, and we continue to gain new clients as our local presence in the area becomes more established.”
Monday, November 19, 2007
Calypso Technology Launches Calypso Fast-Track to Streamline Implementation
- Pre-configured solution with production quality data
- Provides significant reduction in implementation risk
- Enables rapid knowledge transfer to client
San Francisco, November 19, 2007 – Calypso Technology Inc, a global application software provider of an integrated trading application suite to the capital markets industry, today announced the launch of Calypso Fast-Track, a groundbreaking new product designed to assist new and existing customers with their rapid deployment of the Calypso application. Calypso Fast-Track quickly familiarizes new users with the application in a simulated live environment, providing pre-configured data ‘out-of-the-box’ within Calypso’s front to back office application; including risk management, reporting and accounting.
Calypso Fast-Track covers the discovery, development, implementation and validation phases of projects. During a recent implementation, these phases of a Calypso front to back installation for interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives and FX were completed within just 100 workdays. Prior to Calypso Fast-Track, this would typically have taken up to nine months. Designed to reduce the risk of the implementation process, Calypso Fast-Track makes the process as seamless and transparent as possible.
As financial organizations face write-downs arising from the credit crunch, critical system replacement projects risk being delayed or put on hold due to the likelihood of unforeseen costs. These costs can often arise from expanding or inaccurate project scope, unplanned training requirements due to staffing changes mid-project, or a lack of supporting materials to aid implementation.
Calypso Fast-Track addresses these issues from the project kick-off, designed to ensure the scope is fully understood, providing static and reference data, best practice workflows and data interfaces to minimize configuration. Users have continued access to accelerated training programs in a live environment. The entire process is supported by complete and comprehensive documentation.
"Calypso and IBM have built a strategic alliance to assist Calypso users around the world achieve success in their implementations. IBM welcomes the launch of Calypso Fast-Track as a solution aimed at minimizing the inherent risk in system replacement projects – enabling Calypso customers to better realize the benefits of Calypso at an accelerated pace," states Sanny Makki, Partner – Financial Markets at IBM.
“Calypso Fast-Track is the culmination of several years of collective implementation experience from our professional services team, customers, engineering and implementation partners. The solution is unique in that it is an ‘open source’ configuration,” states Gerard Rafie, VP Marketing at Calypso. “This initiative, designed for a greater customer satisfaction, is a major priority for our company, supported by a dedicated team of engineers to process feedback from our customers and to ensure quality enhancements and continuous improvement.”
Calypso has also leveraged its relationship with Accenture for contributions to Calypso Fast-Track content and testing. Steve Scemama, Executive Partner at Accenture, says: “The Calypso software application generates considerable interest from customers based on its robust and flexible functionality that users can configure to match their specific requirements. This new Calypso Fast-Track offering will help facilitate and minimize implementation risk by providing ready to use configuration and documentation that aids knowledge transfer and the performance of gap analysis. The Calypso Fast-Track content will provide customers with the comfort of proven configuration used by industry leaders and peers.”
“We are delighted to launch Calypso Fast-Track,” commented Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc. “By developing Calypso Fast-Track we have revolutionized the Calypso implementation process. Combined with our effective training and interactive documentation, Calypso is a truly unique and powerful software solution for the capital markets.”
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Calypso Ranked as Leading Solution in Asia Risk Technology Survey
- Calypso named #1 trading system for credit
San Francisco, October 31, 2007 – Calypso Technology Inc, a leading provider of capital markets trading software solutions, today announced that its cross-asset, front-to-back solution ranked highly in Asia Risk’s 2007 second annual technology vendor rankings.
Calypso was named the #1 trading system for credit and the fourth overall top vendor. In addition, Calypso ranked highly in a number of other categories, including:
- Pricing and risk analytics for credit, cross-asset, and structured products
- Limit checking
- Collateral management
- Trading systems for commodities, credit, cross-asset, foreign exchange, interest rates and structured products
The rankings are based on a survey of technology users in Asia. Respondents were asked to nominate solutions based on functionality, usability, performance, return on investment and reliability. Calypso’s diverse capabilities, strength in credit and growing client base in Asia enabled the high placements in each category.
“We are delighted that our commitment to providing a leading solution to our clients has been acknowledged by Asia Risk in this way,” commented Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc. “Calypso is committed to fully supporting this market as it continues to grow. As expansion in the region persists, the key financial players will continue to require comprehensive and scalable technology.”
“We would like to thank our clients for nominating us and for making us one of the foremost providers of cross-asset trading technology today,” added Mr. Marston. ”We look forward to continued growth in the future, both globally and in Asia.”
Monday, August 6, 2007
The Master Trust Bank of Japan goes live on Calypso for derivatives processing
The implementation forms part of MTBJ’s initiative to provide high quality sophisticated products, which will enable the bank to achieve its goal of becoming the leading global custodian bank; while also providing the highest standard asset management services.
Pension funds are increasingly investing in derivative products such as interest rate swaps. In addition, available products for making investment decisions in the investment advisory industry will expand after the new Securities Exchange Act, which will be enforced this year. Under the current investment advisory law derivative trades are limited to negotiable securities only, but under the new act this will include credit derivatives. Therefore, MTBJ expects to see further increase in the need for OTC derivative trades such as credit derivatives, interest rate swaps etc, resulting in the need for supporting technology.
In order to comply with the new environment and rapidly evolving market, MTBJ will completely systemize all of its asset management operations relating to derivatives, allowing for high volume processing of derivative transactions. Calypso is an integrated cross-asset software system designed for trading, risk management and processing, combined with high flexibility and extensibility. Specific enhancements have been made to the system to support the Japanese market.
MTBJ will utilize the back-office functions of Calypso’s derivatives solution for asset management. By implementing Calypso, the cash flow calculation, schedule management, market valuation associated with trading OTC derivative products will be possible. Efficient processing and detailed management of high volume derivative transactions, which historically have been difficult to handle, will now be simplified.
In the initial period of the operation, target products are limited to domestic and international interest rate swaps, currency swaps, domestic credit default swaps, total return swaps, swaption, cap and floor with the possibility of expanding coverage in the future.
About Master Trust
The Master Trust Bank of Japan, Ltd is a specialized master trust asset management bank with the managed assets reaching 125 trillion yen as of the end of June 2005. MTBJ is majority-owned by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation. http://www.mastertrust.co.jp/
Monday, July 16, 2007
Landesbank Baden-WĂĽrttemberg Selects Calypso
- Calypso chosen as strategic trading platform for their growing Financial Markets Division
San Francisco, July 16, 2007 – Calypso Technology, Inc., (Calypso) a leading provider of capital markets trading software solutions, today announced that Landesbank Baden-WĂĽrttemberg (LBBW), the leading financial services provider in southwestern Germany with significant retail, corporate and financial market clients worldwide, has selected Calypso’s platform for trading interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives, risk analysis and back-office processing.
The Financial Markets Division of LBBW provides banks, corporate and institutional clients with sophisticated capital market funding and risk management solutions, including numerous instruments and solutions for hedging interest rate and credit risks. As part of LBBW’s corporate strategy, the company is making a targeted effort to grow its capital markets business through the development of structured products as well as the corporate derivatives business.
“In 2006, existing customers grew their usage of these complex derivative products, and we grew our customer base within and outside of Germany,” said Ralf Winkelmann, Head of Capital Markets for LBBW. “We needed new systems that could process these complex products, while allowing us to innovate by quickly adding support for new trading instruments as the markets evolve.”
“Financial markets are growing more complex every day,” said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc., “Our vision to provide an integrated product that addresses all asset classes with front-to-back-office functions makes it possible for innovative financial services providers to serve their clients in new ways.”
About Landesbank Baden-WĂĽrttemberg (LBBW)
With EUR 428.3billion in assets at the end of December, the bank ranks among the largest in Germany. LBBW is the central banker for the savings banks in Baden-WĂĽrttemberg and by incorporating Landesbank Rhineland-Palatinate, (a EUR 67.7 billion institution) the bank has enlarged its geographic area. Since August 2005 LBBW has also strengthened its position in its core market through the integration of BW-Bank, a EUR 20 billion bank that catered to high net worth individuals.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Calypso Unveils Version 9.0; Extends Leadership Position in Capital Markets Software
- Infrastructure enhancements build on technical superiority
- Further broadens product coverage
San Francisco, May 14, 2007 - Calypso Technology, Inc., (Calypso) a leading provider of capital markets trading software solutions today unveiled Version 9.0 of the Calypso suite of solutions. Enhancements in all solution areas build upon Calypso’s innovations in trading, risk management and processing for derivatives, treasury and securities.
Calypso Version 9.0 includes several new innovations that distinguish Calypso from other providers in the capital markets space. These include:
- Calypso eXSP now enables clients to configure Instrument Masters for exotic structures without any coding. Embedded in each Instrument Master is its generic calculation rules and trade entry panel, so that at time of trade, the trader just needs to select the best-fit Master, modify to match unique specifics such as indexes or spreads, and then book the trade. The new structure is fully and instantly incorporated within Calypso as a standard trade. Calypso eXSP provides unrivalled product coverage while enabling clients to control when and where to bring new products to market.
- Calypso ERS (Enterprise Risk Service) now includes a complete real-time limits solution. Built upon the state-of-the-art web-based infrastructure of ERS, the limits module enables enterprise-wide monitoring of settlement, exposure and issuer limits.
- The Calypso Credit Derivatives solution now includes a unique CDO structuring & analysis tool that enables the creation of a bespoke portfolio, pricing of the complete capital structure, enables substitutions and manages the trades affected by substitutions. Markit certification guarantees the quality of integration work for their data. In addition, credit contingency features have now been added to all OTC products.
- Calypso’s underlying infrastructure has also been modified to ensure it remains at the cutting edge of software development. The use of clustering for data servers ensures maximum availability of the solutions, and the Calypso database schema is now defined in XML to simplify the upgrade process. Additions of new server-side components thin the Calypso client applications further.
- The new Calypso Asset Management Module adds functionality meeting the specific requirements of asset managers to the leading sell-side capital markets solutions. The module enables fund and strategy configuration and associations, the ability to trade funds, position configuration and look-through analysis.
“Our highly-skilled engineering team has excelled in enhancing the Calypso functionality and infrastructure with Calypso Version 9.0”, said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc. “We have made several of the enhancements in conjunction with various clients’ input and the market feedback to Calypso Version 9.0 has been extremely positive to date. The innovations demonstrate that Calypso is still the next generation provider for capital markets trading.”
Monday, March 26, 2007
Calypso named by Markit as First Certified Partner for Trading and Processing Solutions
In order to receive certification, Calypso’s product management team for credit derivatives had to demonstrate that the completed integration of CDS, CDS Indices, RED and Tranche data met the integration standards defined by Markit. The certification means that joint customers of Calypso and Markit can be assured of a high quality of integration. The combination of Calypso’s best of breed front-to-back solution for credit derivatives and Markit’s leading independent credit data creates an unrivalled value proposition for any organisation trading these products.
“Calypso has invested in an ongoing partnership with Markit for several years – we were the first vendor to integrate RED in 2004 and have expanded the integration of Markit data throughout our credit derivatives solution”, said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso Technology, Inc. “Beyond the certification, we continue to look at new ways to interface to Markit’s offerings. For example, through our project to integrate Markit’s Reference Cashflow Database for clients using Calypso to trade CDS on ABS.”
“We are delighted to recognize Calypso as the first trading and processing solution provider among our alliance partners to receive formal certification. Calypso has proven the quality of its integration work, a process that was accelerated by the strength of the partnership between the two firms and the technical skills of individuals on both sides,” said Nicola von Schroeter, Global Head of the Markit Alliance Program.
About Markit
Markit Group Limited is the leading provider of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing to the global financial and commodities markets. The company receives daily data contributions from over 75 dealing firms, and its services are used by almost 1,000 institutions to enhance trading operations, reduce risk and manage compliance.
Markit’s position in the derivatives markets has been acknowledged by the industry with numerous awards. In 2006, the company won Operations Management’s Vendor of the Year award (Trade Processing); Financial News’ Best Derivatives Data Solution and Best New Vendor Solution (Portfolio Valuations); Credit’s Best Operational Support Services Provider; Inside Market Data’s Reference Data Provider of the Year, and Company to Watch; Risk’s Trading Initiative of the Year (Credit Event Fixings); and Structured Finance International’s Editor’s Award for Advancing Structured Finance. In 2005, Markit received International Securitisation Report’s Editor’s Award for Innovation; International Financing Review’s Innovation of the Year (Credit Event Fixings); Financial News’ Best Derivatives Data Provider; and Operations Management’s Vendor of the Year award.
For more information, see http://www.markit.com/