Bankers Trust Co. is offering a new software package to help banks and brokerages settle their government securities dealings with the Federal Reserve more quickly.
The software, called Government Clearance System, can link banks electronically to the Fed, providing them real-time access to handle their trades.
Traders can use the system as a service through Bankers Trust Financial Service Information Systems Corp. - the bank subsidiary that markets this service - or larger banks may choose to buy the software and run it themselves.
So far, the New York-based money center has 25 customers using GCS as a service - five banks and 20 broker-dealers. Bankers Trust would not disclose the names of these customers.
Continuous Updating
"GCS offers continuous real-time screen updating to report settlements as they happen, enabling banks to identify deliveries they still need to make, securities delivered to them that they are not expecting but have not yet received," said James Saber, the product manager for the software.
"GCS makes it easy for an institution to avoid the costs of funding failed deliveries and unwanted receives."
This can save some banks as much as $1 million a year, Mr. Saber claimed.
The electronic system also lessens the possibility of error in entering trade information, he added, requiring the data to be entered only once.
Traders and account administrators can monitor their settled and projected positions and review their cash position at the Fed regularly.
Clients Gain Access
The GCS system also allows banks to give their clients access to certain functions, such as the ability to send delivery instructions and control incoming deliveries from other institutions on their own.
Bankers Trust, which trades about $50 billion in government securities every day, started developing this system last year. For the five years previous to this, the bank had used the service provided by Security Pacific Corp., prior to its acquisition by BankAmerica Corp.
GCS is aimed at banks of all sizes, and Bankers Trust will set the system price individually, based on a bank's settlement volume.
"With GCS, any institution, however big or small, can leap to the forefront of sophistication," Mr. Saber said.
