Collateral management and optimisation product of the year: CloudMargin

Collateral management has become one of the most strategically important components of capital markets infrastructure. With margin requirements rising, market conditions fluctuating rapidly and global regulators sharpening their focus on collateral readiness and operational resilience, firms across the buy and sell sides are under pressure to adopt technology that delivers clarity, efficiency and stability. The 2026 Collateral management and optimisation product of the year winner, CloudMargin, stood out for doing exactly that.

The company, already a three-time winner in this category, has continued to demonstrate why it remains the industry’s leading cloud-native collateral workflow provider. CloudMargin was founded in response to the shortcomings of legacy, on-premise collateral systems: high cost, heavy maintenance, limited automation and a lack of real-time visibility. By redesigning the operating model entirely around cloud delivery and straight-through processing, the company has built a platform capable of supporting the needs of more than 230 organisations across all corners of global markets.

What made CloudMargin’s product offering compelling this year was the scale of measurable operational impact paired with evidence of resilience during market stress. The platform’s ability to manage collateral across all asset classes – spanning cleared and uncleared over-the-counter instruments, exchange-traded derivatives, repo and securities lending from pre-trade to settlement – positions it as a single point of control in a landscape in which collateral fragmentation has historically led to operational blind spots.

A cloud-native platform built for today’s collateral demands

CloudMargin’s design philosophy is clear: simplicity, automation and holistic visibility are not optional features but foundational requirements for modern collateral operations. The platform’s cloud-native architecture bypasses the risks associated with legacy installations, eliminating the need for manual patching or lengthy upgrade cycles. Instead, CloudMargin provides real-time software updates to all clients simultaneously, preserving a consistent level of performance and functionality across its global user base.

This model also enables CloudMargin to auto-scale according to demand. During periods of high volatility or large intraday movements, when margin calls spike and collateral flows accelerate, the platform dynamically adjusts to maintain performance and avoid bottlenecks. This is particularly relevant in environments such as those of 2025, where geopolitical disruption, rising tariffs and wider market volatility drove dramatic increases in margin requirements across asset classes.

CloudMargin’s centralised workflow consolidates all collateral activities on a single platform, reducing operational risk and providing firms with a unified view of their obligations, inventory and settlement status. By integrating seamlessly with custodians, tri-party agents, trading platforms and downstream systems, CloudMargin also simplifies data ingestion and distribution across the full collateral ecosystem.

Driving cost efficiency, automation and control

One of the strongest differentiators in CloudMargin’s platform is its ability to deliver meaningful and quantifiable reductions in cost, risk and operational burden. Firms using CloudMargin have reported total cost-of-ownership reductions of up to 70% compared with legacy systems. This benefit is reinforced by the platform’s fully automated workflow, which removes manual intervention from critical stages such as margin call issuance, agreement, pledge instruction and settlement.

End-to-end automation has become particularly valuable as firms face increasing volumes of margin calls and tighter intraday timelines. With CloudMargin, business-as-usual tasks are completed far earlier in the day, allowing teams to dedicate their attention to exceptions, risk management and strategic planning.

Enhancing the platform through continuous innovation

CloudMargin’s pace of innovation over the past year reflects growing demand and the increasing complexity in collateral management. The platform processed approximately 1 million margin calls in the past 12 months and introduced more than 1,100 updates, including 30 new features that automatically became available to every client.

The firm’s partnership with Northern Trust, has enabled institutional investors to manage collateral more efficiently amid continual market change. Following extensive due diligence, Northern Trust selected CloudMargin to deliver enhanced transparency, automated asset selection, complex eligibility rule support, real-time data access and a modernised, end-to-end workflow.

CloudMargin has also focused on developing a dynamic eligibility rule-builder and on enhancing real-time inventory capabilities. These additions allow clients to construct, layer and adjust eligibility criteria instantly, and respond to liquidity needs as they evolve throughout the day. Real-time updates between trading desks and CloudMargin’s platform eliminate dislocation between trading activities and collateral processes, enabling firms to optimise liquidity management more effectively.

Performance under volatility

CloudMargin’s performance during volatile market periods was pivotal to its recognition this year. Many firms still operate without straight-through processing, leaving them exposed to operational delays and backlog when volatility pushes margin calls sharply higher. By contrast, CloudMargin’s clients were able to handle elevated volumes with minimal manual intervention.

The platform provided real-time visibility into margin exposures and inventory, automated the full workflow from call issuance through settlement, and supported rapid decision-making regarding cashflows and asset utilisation. This enabled firms to prioritise cheapest-to-deliver collateral, execute substitutions automatically and maintain adequate liquidity buffers without sacrificing efficiency or control.

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