German investment manager DekaBank is to increase its use of US-based SunGard’s Martini software to include support for principal lending and collateral management. DekaBank began using Martini, which provides integrated trading and operations support for securities, in 2003.

The expansion of Martini’s use will help DekaBank support high trade volumes while reducing administration needs and overall trading risk. In addition, the programme’s user interface will enable DekaBank to achieve cleaner and faster process management and marketing. It will also help the firm improve its ability to limit and manage exposure across the business.

"Martini’s principal lending functionality will help us to bring additional liquidity to the market, something that we see as being critical to our growth in the immediate future,” said
Walter Kraushaar, head of short term products at DekaBank, Corporates and Markets.

“In such unprecedented times it is important that DekaBank has both scalable and functionally rich technology to support its repo business. Martini can help banks, brokers, hedge funds, and other investment funds, improve their risk management and enable the use of collateral whilst also helping them reduce intra- and inter-entity financing costs,” added Brain Traquair, president of SunGard’s capital markets and investment banking business.

With annual revenue of $5 billion,
SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. Headquartered in
the US state of
Pennsylvania, the company employs 17,900 people in more than 400 offices across 30 countries.