There is no doubt that Straight Through Processing (STP) is a crucial and necessary step in business development for those companies wanting to remain competitive. This is according to Mark Ehmke, managing director of Staffware South Africa, who adds that STP is also set to revolutionise the end-to-end operations of the investment banking and broking sectors.
"STP is an invisible real-time technology which seamlessly automates procedures right through the investment banking chain. By providing the means to fully automate financial processes and transactions, STP results in greater efficiency, improved speed and the general streamlining of an organisation`s structure and resources," Ehmke explains.
"Real-time processing is now mandatory in order to meet market demands," he adds. "And STP is the only way to harness the blazing speed with which the global financial industry is expanding before our eyes. "Today`s complex markets are more competitive than ever before and STP is recognised as being key to resolving critical business issues, thus helping companies achieve true competitive advantage."
STP can be defined as the "confirmation and settlement of a trade without any manual intervention after the buyer and seller have keyed in the trade details, except for reasons of policy such as regulatory oversight or internal control".
A major goal of STP is simply the increased automation of back office processes. To gain internal STP, an organisation must minimise all forms of manual intervention in their own front to back office systems.
An effectively designed and implemented STP solution should integrate with any existing system, operate across all platforms and work in parallel with relevant front-end applications, according to Ehmke.
STP also facilitates the extraction and reporting of business-critical information at any point in the sequence, which creates greater management control and awareness.
"In essence, it leverages the existing computing infrastructure of an organisation and offers a competitive edge in a business where speed, accuracy and information flow are vital," he says.
"It is widely agreed throughout the wholesale banking industry that STP is the only viable route available to most companies wishing to remain competitive as the 21st century approaches," Ehmke believes.
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