Sungard's Infinity Acquires OSM For Collateral Management

LONDON--Infinity has bought One Stop Margin (OSM) from Synamic. OSM is a global collateral management system that is designed to automate compliance with diverse legislation across jurisdictions while supporting major agreements like those presided over by ISDA, PSA, IFEMA and ISMA.

The terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed but SunGard Data Systems, Infinity's parent company, does not expect this deal to materially affect its financial results for 1999.

At the company's user group meeting in Montreal last month, Infinity stressed electronic commerce and operational efficiency initiatives over its core risk management practice. The acquisition of OSM would appear to be fully in line with this new approach.

An OSM user at Deutsche Bank says: "With the volume of collateralized business exploding on a global scale, we needed a system which allows us to process more collateral agreements, use a wider variety of collateral types, and manage these trades on a global basis. OSM enhances the bank's competitive advantage."

Ron Lang, Infinity's president and CEO, says: "With large volumes of high value trades in semiregulated, highly volatile markets being transacted every day, mitigation of the inherent credit and trading risk is one of the hottest issues in banking. The OSM system automates the processes of receiving, monitoring and valuing collateral, with sufficient flexibility and scalability to satisfy users of every complexion."

As regulators begin to pressure the collateral operations of most institutions and credit risk management becomes ever more urgent in a globalized marketplace, the automation of these operations is becoming more and more critical. This is especially urgent given the complexity of daily margin calls and the growing need to produce ad hoc management information in complex OTC markets.