CLS Aggregation and Traiana have won the Clearing and Settlement Innovation award in The Banker’s 2010 Innovation in Banking Technology Awards. The awards celebrate those companies behind the industry's smartest technology solutions.
The CLS Aggregation Service, initiated by CLS and Traiana (an ICAP company), was conceived to address increasing ticket volumes and the resultant operational and capacity challenges faced by banks – a consequence of the tremendous growth in FX market participation as hedge funds, algorithmic traders, retail and institutional clients become active traders of foreign exchange. By leveraging the significant assets both CLS and Traiana had in place, the initiative was brought from concept to production deployment in less than nine months with the service going live in January 2010.
The CLS Aggregation Service, powered by Traiana, compresses smaller trades into single bigger tickets, before passing them to CLS for settlement. Achieving a compression ratio of more than 90%, the service dramatically reduces participating banks' processing burdens and capacity constraints, thereby reducing post-trade processing costs. By monitoring trade flows in real time, the system also mitigates operational risk, further strengthening market infrastructure.
The award acknowledges the commitment across both CLS and Traiana to constantly innovate and collaborate with the wider FX industry to deliver solutions that benefit all market participants.