The Company
Founded in 1925 and headquartered in Tokyo, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SuMiTB) provides banking and trust services in Japan. SuMiTB offers financial services such as syndicated loans, real estate finance and project finance. They also provide asset management and real estate management service, as well as consulting services, including M&A advisory and consulting for corporate clients. SuMiTB is one of the largest asset managers in Japan, with Total Assets of 54,596.7 billion yen in March 2020 in a country where trust banks are major players in the asset management industry (as is SuMiTB). SuMiTB manages a broad spectrum of Japanese Equity products and is well known in Japan as a principal provider of Japanese equity products for corporate and governmental pension funds.
The Challenge
SuMiTB was looking for a core banking system to replace their legacy system and for a comprehensive Treasury Management Solution to allow standardisation of processes across its overseas offices with a fully integrated STP platform. They were aiming at streamlining their operations between front and back office and eliminating double entries. SuMiTB also required a single common database to facilitate its global system management while overcoming the induced challenges of time zones, volume and confidentiality across offices. In a few words, the ideal Treasury platform needed to include the below requirements:
• Standardisation
• STP
• Single database
• Cloud environment.
The Solution
Following a thorough vendor evaluation, SuMiTB selected Acumennet as it supported their set requirements regarding front office as well as risk areas with an extensive range of financial instruments covering FX, MM, Securities, OTC derivatives and Exchange Traded derivatives, among others. Valuation and risk analysis of complex instruments is available real time and can be shared with the back-end. Acumennet boosts flexibility and efficiency of operations by integrating several dealing platforms into one. It also integrates with other systems of the Bank, offering real-time APIs that ensure minimum user intervention throughout the deals’ life cycle.
The Benefits
Acumennet is an evolving platform for Treasurers allowing them to manage efficiently and securely their daily tasks and plan for the future. It delivers compliance and has the mechanism to easily accommodate any changes such as Libor decommissioning or set up of new instruments. Acumennet is continuously being enriched in functionality and delivering advanced user experience with holistic dashboards accommodating latest trends and supporting full STP, thus offering automation in cross-banking operations.
According to Jun Nakai, Project Director at SuMiTB, “Acumennet has helped us automate our operations and save time since it interfaces in real-time with the back-office systems without human entry.” SuMiTB is utilising the cloud environment to run the solution for maximising its benefit. The solution is being implemented across their overseas offices, in London, New York, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Thus, SuMiTB benefits from increased innovation, security, data protection and regulatory compliance, all of which are critical for any bank to compete in the digital era.
Looking ahead, they are able to effectively communicate across the 6 offices using one platform based on the latest technology tools.
