Best vendor for system support and implementation: Murex

Asia Risk Technology Awards 2019

Guy Otayek, Murex

With more than 30 years’ experience delivering systems across a wide client base, Murex has acquired deep insight into the variables and potential hot spots of implementing and maintaining its technology. The company has made effective use of this information to guide and evolve its support services.

The first principle of Murex’s support offering is a personalised approach. “Our services have been designed to foster and maintain personal connections with our clients from implementation to extension and day-to-day actions,” says Guy Otayek, chief executive of Murex Asia-Pacific.

All clients are allocated a dedicated support team and a named support co-ordinator. Murex has over 280 client support staff in Asia-Pacific applying local knowledge, including language, business and regulatory practices, to projects. Support teams cover project delivery, maintenance and upgrades and extensions, and are also pooled by client portfolio to ensure there is a high level of skills and knowledge sharing across implementations.

Murex equips its teams with a set of tools for testing, configuration and operational environment management to reduce time and costs. Systems come with a basic testing suite and associated training, with options for automation as well as a full service to implement and execute tests.

Murex’s MXtest testing framework can also be integrated into a third-party test management tool if required and complements other test engine tools. One banking client recently reduced testing costs by almost half during an upgrade after more than 80% of its tests were automated in MXtest.

A further efficiency measure is the pre-packaging of functionality for specific tasks, such as Fundamental Review of the Trading Book or standard initial margin methodology compliance, giving clients the ability to customise if required. “This combination of pre-packaged solution and client customisation boosts efficiency in project delivery and increases customer satisfaction,” says Otayek.

Another key principle of Murex’s support approach is continuous knowledge sharing. This is achieved through comprehensive documentation and hands-on, classroom and electronic-based learning. Clients and Murex’s support partners can also further their knowledge by working alongside the company’s experts in one its global offices. Between January 2018 and April 2019, the Murex Asia-Pacific team ran more than 100 client training sessions on a wide range of topics, as well as running over 20 training sessions with leading consulting firms that help clients to integrate the company’s MX.3 platform.

Murex has devoted considerable effort over the years to growing its global partnership network. Its system integration partners provide a wide range of services, from business requirement collection to project management, system design, configuration, integration, testing, application management and application outsourcing. “Partnership is an important aspect of the Murex strategy during the project delivery and support stages, enabling clients to reduce total cost of ownership by ensuring smooth deployment of our applications, maximising functionality and user acceptance, and rapidly achieving return on investment,” says Otayek.

Murex has strategically positioned itself to support large institutions undertaking major IT infrastructure transformations where risk management is a core aspect. The company has developed advanced tools, methodologies and know-how for these major ‘replatforming’ programmes. “Murex has a deep and unique project experience in this area, with successful projects including a major Asia-Pacific bank,” he says.

As part of its strategy to continually evolve and improve its support, the company recently introduced Murex Operate, a rapid-response service aimed at resolving critical technical production incidents that occur outside regular working hours. Supported by an experienced technical team with broad knowledge across the company’s technology, the service aims to restore system operation as quickly as possible and minimise the impact on business. “This new, after-hours support leads to a reduction in operational risk for our clients and supports total cost of ownership reduction by restoring a normal MX platform operation as quickly as possible,” says Otayek.

Murex support services also cover the upgrade and extension of its systems, where its teams often play an advisory role. This may include a specific follow-up around upgrades, the design of testing strategies, or the organisation and training of the client-side support team. The company currently has nearly 40 such projects under way across nine countries, including China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

As an example of these projects, Murex played an important advisory role when one of Asia’s leading financial institutions recently selected the MX.3 overnight index swap (OIS) discounting framework to build an accurate and coherent curve framework. “While the bank knew where it wanted to go, it needed to decide how to get there. They chose to partner with Murex on this project not only for the quality of the MX.3 platform but also the expertise of the Murex team,” says Otayek. The company worked closely with the bank throughout the project, assessing how the change from Libor to OIS would impact its business and ensuring the bank achieved a flexible solution that provides accuracy while minimising risk.

Murex’s approach to support and implementation is best summed up by one of its clients. Alex Duke, head of operations automation and core banking at ANZ, speaking about the bank’s partnership with Murex on a panel at Sibos 2018 in Sydney, said: “The right vendors are those who are in the trenches with you, living and working through the problem with you and understanding your flows.”

One Asia Risk judge said: “Murex is uncompromising in terms of the quality and delivery of its products. Its longevity means that it has a unique degree of knowledge of the variables in implementing its systems. Its implementation and support tools and services are second to none, and its significant on-the-ground training for clients is a big plus.”