Sell-Side Technology Awards 2020: Best Sell-Side Back-Office Platform—Torstone Technology

Trading volumes continue to grow across asset classes as interest in and knowledge of complex instruments rises. As a result, the increasing volume of data weighs on banks’ in-house capabilities. Regulation, too, is more deterministic in terms of how firms are required to report and assess risk. Banks have had to gather data that is increasingly detailed and build statistical representations of their risk positions, often in real-time. 

Software-as-a-service offerings like Torstone Technology’s platform help firms to scale workloads and access tools easily, regardless of location. The platform allows banks to move from a restricted, siloed legacy environment to an open and agile post-trade cloud infrastructure without disrupting their day-to-day operations.

The Torstone Cloud platform is underpinned by open APIs to deliver a full suite of modular, real-time, post-trade functionality for all asset classes, from initial middle-office trade capture, risk and confirmations to back-office settlement, reconciliation, accounting, cash and collateral management.

Torstone is working with clients to deliver new functionality on the platform, which will allow them to more effectively distribute data around their firms and build new capabilities based on greater real-time distribution.

Brian Collings, CEO of Torstone, says the firm is increasing its connectivity capabilities by adding new central security depositories and connections to other industry utilities. It is also expanding its support for assets such as funds and listed derivatives. “We’re also developing products that better facilitate use of the platform in the retail space, and well as further expanding our middle-office capabilities,” Collings says. 

In 2019, Torstone acquired risk and compliance firm Percentile, and through the integration of the RiskMine platform, it plans to add trade positioning and risk calculation capabilities to Inferno. Collings says the acquisition and integration have supported Torstone’s clients in sharing high-quality, real-time transaction and reference data across global entities in multiple locations. He adds that Torstone’s platform is developed and supported with an Agile-DevOps methodology, with continuous monthly release cycles and real-time updates. Hence, future developments have rapid design, rollout, and spin-up time.