Microsoft solutions for capital markets and securities focus on improving operational efficiency and developing innovative products and services—all within the frameworks of existing systems and business processes.
In the capital markets/securities industry, Microsoft provides:
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Familiar Microsoft products that help employees monitor, optimize, and work collaboratively with new and existing business processes.
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A rich partner ecosystem, for best-of-breed solutions, tools, support, services, and outsourcing.
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The ability to interoperate within existing systems, which minimizes service disruption.
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Rich options for security, authentication, transaction processing, and workflow services, which improve operations.
Risk management and compliance focuses on delivering solutions that will enable capital markets and securities and firmsf to align their information technology (IT) and business processes to meet risk and compliance requirements, achieve greater operational efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction. Microsoft and its partners also enable companies to integrate information spread across disparate systems for a holistic view of the company, thus empowering employees to identify and share best risk management and compliance practices.
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Document management and records retention: This approach provides version control capabilities, library services, and document level security features that span the entire document management life cycle and ensure compliance with data storage, retrieval, archival, and disposal requirements leveraging partner solutions and the Microsoft platform.
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Audit and controls: Microsoft and its partners help financial services firms put in place the effective checks and balances required to support compliance and governance efforts.
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Risk analytics: A comprehensive reporting environment along with tools and features for business performance management, forecasting, trend analysis, and more with partner solutions that are built on SQL Server using reporting and analysis services.
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Security and privacy management: A focus on balancing organizational risks and ever increasing external threats, which also considers regulatory compliance requirements.
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Business continuity management: An approach to put in place alternative work practices and workflows—such as remote access technology, collaborative solutions, and segregation of critical workflows—to enable employees to provide basic functions remotely in case of incident or natural disaster.
Advisor platforms enables financial advisors to work more effectively and efficiently across information sources and distribution channels to better service clients. By integrating systems, advisors gain a more holistic view of the customer, along with a greater ability to cross-sell products. With integrated platforms, financial advisors have more time with customers because they have fewer administrative burdens. This approach begins with enhanced tools for client prospecting and spans every aspect of ongoing relationship management.
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Advisor desktop/portal: Providing advisors with a desktop/portal that delivers integrated information and business processes through familiar and easy-to-adopt user interfaces and tools. It gives advisors a holistic view of their clients so they can identify appropriate products and services. It also helps advisors to more effectively prospect for new clients.
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Company and industry-provided services: Systems and tools to aid in attracting and retaining advisors with infrastructure services, such as identity, workflow, rights management, messaging, document retention, data warehousing access, business intelligence, and access to enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
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Advisory management: Systems and tools to enable an agency, bank, or broker to manage their business, compensation, and compliance, assuring that products are appropriate to the circumstances and the level of sophistication of the principal. The approach also provides supervisory oversight of the effectiveness of the selling function.
The focus on investment management is designed to meet the needs of institutional investors, brokers, dealers, and corporate treasuries by providing partner-led solutions in capital markets. Customers ranging from hedge funds and corporate treasuries to exchanges can benefit from the use of Microsoft-based solutions in their front, middle, and back offices.
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Investment analytics: Provides an opportunity for trade and investment houses to reduce unnecessary human interaction during the trade cycle while recognizing and taking advantage of trends spotted in real-time streaming data. It provides both an entry-level opportunity for customers who wish to enter the electronic trading floor and an upgrade opportunity for those who need to modernize their current investment management.
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Trade compliance: Helping investors achieve best execution, best pricing, and compliance with existing and future regulation frameworks by designing the framework for a comprehensive electronic trade compliance system which streamlines compliance with the many regulations that exist, especially focusing on the two largest: RegNMS and MiFID.
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Investment services: Supporting the trade life cycle, this solution concentrates on those services that brokers, analysts, and investment advisors use to make decisions, evaluate markets, and recommend products. There is a heavy focus on Excel Services along with market data management, streaming real-time quoting systems, and middle and back office settlement systems.
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Trade floor-in-a-box: A one-stop-shop for the corporate treasury, hedge fund, or investment broker who wants to install a modern, turnkey trade floor, allowing a fast setup and deployment, along with the security and ease of maintenance that is uniquely offered by Microsoft.
