Differentiate, commoditize, and harmonize

September 23, 2021

Repo traders vying to make the most of the industry’s digital transformation need products that help them cope with a vast amount of data and cognitive strain. Targeting the right opportunities in an increasingly competitive arena depends on the ability to maintain focus.

At ION, we often talk to customers about the new challenges that they face and how we can deliver solutions that fit their needs. Whenever we do, we apply the mindset of thinking long-term. This helps us ensure the solution is optimal for both the customer and the product. We try to keep three goals in mind:

  1. Commoditize. Banks’ IT departments shouldn’t be focusing time and effort on highly standardized functionality. If it is common to any customer, they should seek a solution that can be bought ready-tested and production-hardened across the globe.
  2. Differentiate. When a conscious decision is taken to deviate from the norm, it’s with the aim of achieving a competitive advantage. We help customers focus maximum effort on this by providing open APIs and clearly defining the boundaries of what is core (and therefore available to all) and what is customer-specific (and proprietary per client).
  3. Harmonize. It’s not enough to throw a set of loosely coupled parts together and hope for the best. In any complex system, the design needs to consider how each component will work together in the context of many workflows. One massive advantage is to have an underlying technology platform that you can trust to ensure the performance and control of the overall system. And it lets us deliver a modern, consistent, optimized user experience.

Besides the architectural advantages of ION’s component-based approach, the ability to provide modular, service oriented solutions means customers can pick and choose what they need and extend it to be what they want. Taking Anvil OMS as an example, we have used this to meet the challenge of consolidating multiple decision-support data—some of which may be ubiquitous or proprietary—into a repo trader’s desktop, normalising all the incoming flows from whatever source they emanate. Like a pilot in a cockpit, the trader can focus on their “head-up display” and make better decisions faster while avoiding context-switching and distracting noise.

Anvil product logo icon

To learn more about Anvil OMS and how we can help automate your repo client order management, contact us today to book a demo.