The bank will gain comprehensive front office, back office and risk management support for interest-rate derivatives, bonds and bond options, repos, and money market instruments (including primary issuance functionality). Summit’s front-office features encompass trade capture/tracking and maintenance, pricing capabilities and portfolio analytics, and real-time monitoring of the bank’s assets and liabilities.
"The key factor in choosing Summit," said Waqar Sheikh, head of the bank’s A&L Trading Group, "was the depth and scope of their straight-through-processing features. By providing the automation capabilities necessary to eliminate manual processing steps and transaction errors, Summit allows us to significantly cut overhead costs." He added, "Additional distinguishing features are Summit’s comprehensive instrument coverage and extensibility of their applications."
Sheikh also commented on the advantages of Summit’s advanced connectivity tools. "System integration between different vendors is often problematic, but Summit tackles our needs quite effectively. Summit’s real-time interface to the Bloomberg Trading System® provides transparent trade download."
In addition to the need for portfolio management capabilities and automation of trade processing, FAS133 was critical for the bank’s accounting group. According to Marc Malone, First V.P. of Treasury Accounting, "Summit’s solution to the issues we face reflects a good understanding of our needs to comply with all aspects of SFAS 133." He noted: "The system offers very flexible accounting capabilities and rich analytical tools which will allow us to document and track hedge strategies, perform effectiveness testing and measurement, and generate the required accounting entries."
Future expansion plans by Washington Mutual includes usage of Summit’s enterprise risk management product suite. Summit’s Linear Contour Credit module and Limit Manager provide tight control over credit exposure, while its Delta/Gamma VaR module gives risk professionals a powerful tool for managing market risk intra-day.
