Greenline

Case Studies

Professional Services partners with clients to deliver cost and operational savings to accelerate business for multinational financial institutions

Greenline Professional Services partners with clients to identify and implement solutions that save time, money and improve operational efficiencies. Our consultative approach and results-driven focus are a proven model for clients looking for global financial technology expertise.

Please click on a case study below to learn more:

FIX Onboarding: Structured Process Drives Efficient Onboarding and Revenue Acceleration

Client

Large North American Equities Broker

Summary

Greenline partnered with a Large North American Broker to assess, develop and implement a more efficient, reliable FIX onboarding process. Inefficient processes, limited documentation, and limited team delivery were driving an inconsistent customer experience and a growing backlog of certifications. Greenline's consultative approach and best practices expertise helped the client create and implement a structured process that works with multiple groups, helping improve efficiency at each leg of the onboarding cycle. The result is a coordinated effort to complete certifications in a timely manner.

Description

  • Client expanding FIX connectivity to international marketplace
  • Inconsistent process for certification with limited governance and no metrics
  • Growing backlog and pending wave of recertifications with platform migration

Approach

  • Greenline's consultative approach assessed current state and identified appropriate gaps
  • Identification of future state process, governance, and metrics
  • Execution of process for large set of recertifications
  • Transition and training to growing onboarding team

Results

  • Defined and implemented onboarding best practices, governance, and metrics
  • Automated onboarding workflow implementation
  • Templates and artifacts for consistent client interaction
  • 50+ Certified clients in half the time and effort

Benefits

  • Revenue acceleration through speed to market
  • Consistent customer interactions increasing customer relationships
  • Greater than 50% increase in onboarding throughput
  • Reduced cost of onboarding process

Automated Testing: Increasing Determinability Enables Rapid Deployments

Client

Equities ATS

Summary

Greenline's client, an equities ATS, needed to develop FIX connectivity to provide access to the platform for both buy and sellside market participants. Greenline implemented automated functional and regression testing with VeriFIX® as well as provided expert analysis and process improvement recommendations. Greenline's full lifecycle approach addressed the need for automated testing, as well as a testing program that can function for the future connectivity needs of the client.

Description

  • Client supporting FIX connectivity to deliver broker and buy-side access to the ATS destination
  • Testing complexity extended across the end to end system and required market data coordination
  • Testing process and architecture not well aligned for FIX transactional testing

Approach

  • Assess overall state of FIX API testing across regression, load, performance and capacity testing
  • Implement a comprehensive testing framework within VeriFIX:
    • Simulating buy-side clients connecting into ATS platform
    • Negative and positive testing, load and capacity testing
    • Fix connectivity testing both pre- and post-deployment
    • Corner case testing for in-flight fills, cancels, rejects, etc.

Results

  • Fully functioning and executable VeriFIX® automated test suite
  • Testing results and analysis across functional and performance testing
  • Training and transition to Quality Assurance (QA) teams to run and expand testing suites
  • Updated QA process to reflect automation

Benefits

  • Increased efficiency and effectiveness of testing
  • Dramatic decrease in testing timeframe, from weeks to hours
  • Reduced cost of both testing and development. Overall iterations are faster.

Business Continuity: Business Activity Monitoring Reduces Support and Troubleshooting Costs

Client

Global Investment Bank

Summary

Greenline developed an end-to-end, dynamic monitoring process to identify and address connectivity issues. Results and analysis from FIX monitoring were used for failover planning in the event of an emergency. Greenline partnered with the client to implement MagniFIX®, integrate operational monitoring processes, and provide training for day-to-day management. Greenline also developed a business continuity plan for the client's FIX infrastructure. Overall customer relationships improved and support costs dropped as proactive monitoring was implemented.

Description

  • Client lacked monitoring and associated response to FIX connection issues
  • Real time alerting and was not possible and responses to events were reactive to customer complaints
  • Historical searching and troubleshooting was taking too much time

Approach

  • Assess current state of capabilities and needs; then define implementation and configuration to those needs
  • Identify best failover mechanism for the application
  • Implement types of controls needed for FIX Engine monitoring
    • Monitoring and metrics configuration
    • Alert configuration
  • Determine processes integration for operations team

Results

  • Successful implementation and rollout
  • Introduce support processes for FIX messaging queries
  • More efficient and accurate responses from Support personnel
  • Technical personnel can easily control FIX engine through GUI

Benefits

  • Improved customer relationship through proactive monitoring
  • Troubleshooting incidents and time spent on each incident were greatly reduced
  • Reduced cost of support and operations

Advisory: FIX Maturity Gap Assessment Leads To Enterprise Improvement Plan

Client

Large International Fixed Income Provider

Summary

Greenline's client was dramatically increasing its FIX connectivity through the release of a new application. FIX connectivity was historically run out of the development team including testing, certification, and API support. With the increase in connections, FIX testing, certification and support could no longer be supported and managed by the development team. Development resources needed to be deployed on platform development. Greenline defined the level of maturity and associated roadmap for the technology organization to be able to deploy and manage FIX connections efficiently and effectively.

Description

  • Development resources needed for development rather than FIX testing and support
  • Commitments for platform deployment had been made
  • Limited FIX capability across the broader organization

Approach

  • Consultative approach for understanding current state and future needs across:
    • FIX specification management
    • Development and architecture
    • Testing and certification
    • Monitoring and support
  • Gap analysis and risk identification for each focus area
  • Focus area planning including estimates and resource needs
  • Pragmatic phased automation plans across multiple platform releases

Results

  • Identified actionable focus areas improvements
  • Defined an integrated roadmap for incremental and phased maturity evolution for FIX delivery and management
  • Cost, effort and timeline estimates for each focus area

Benefits

  • Detailed study that defined delivery risks and quantified gap mitigations
  • Actionable plan to address weaknesses for FIX delivery and management
  • Project definitions and cost estimates to mitigate risks for short and long term success

Connectivity Implementation: FIX Capability Enables Seamless Connectivity to Multiple Destinations

Client

Buyside Trading Organization

Summary

Our client recognized the value in implementing FIX connectivity to minimize electronic trading connection costs to futures and options exchanges such as CME, LIFFE, Hot Spot, etc. However, with limited FIX knowledge and a desire to integrate as quickly as possible, Greenline was asked to assist with FIX enablement. After recommending then integrating the appropriate engine, Greenline also built custom integration layers around the proprietary trading OMS and associated signaling architecture. Greenline managed the end to end implementation from OMS to destination exchange including connectivity, integration, testing, and certification.

Description

  • FIX Gateway to be implemented for easy integration with futures and options trading venues
  • Client has no FIX delivery capability
  • Aggressive delivery timeframes to enable proprietary trading methodologies and algorithms
  • Proprietary OMS that was not designed to integrate to FIX engines

Approach

  • Reviewed marketplace and requirements, and recommended FIX engine
  • Assessed integration requirements for internal OMS
  • Implemented FIX engine and build custom API wrappers and extensions for OMS integration
  • Implemented testing and certification process and executed certification to future and options exchanges
  • Managed relationship between engine provider and trading organization for integration expectation and requirements

Results

  • Cost effective and highly scalable FIX connectivity solution
  • Isolated OMS and connectivity tiers
  • Fully certified and live connections to multiple exchanges
  • Documented and efficient FIX certification process

Benefits

  • Scalable trading without detracting from core trading focus
  • Flexible API architecture limits future technology investment
  • Efficient delivery enabled revenue acceleration

To find out how to partner with Greenline, please contact Greenline today.

Request More Product Information

©2013 Greenline Financial Technologies, Inc.