Consulting & Expert Advice by SkySparc

Unrivaled expertise and innovative solutions

At SkySparc, we specialize in providing expert advice and bespoke consulting solutions to leading banks, corporates, asset managers, central banks and government financial institutions.

We’re widely recognized for innovative solutions that deliver tangible value to clients. Successful implementations of our Patch Upgrade as-a-Service model earned SkySparc the Technology Consultant of the Year award at Central Banking’s FinTech & RegTech Global Awards 2019, having previously won Treasury Today’s Adam Smith Award for Best Risk Management Solution and Central Banking’s Consultancy and Advisory Award.

Our extensive experience, deep consulting resources and unique combination of financial and technical expertise make us the first choice for large, complex organizations looking to optimize their treasury and risk management systems and related processes, whilst reducing total cost of ownership.

From process re-engineering programs to compliance-driven projects, such as IBOR migration, SkySparc has the skills and tools to provide value-added consulting support.

Our expertise covers every generation of Wallstreet Suite from V2 to the present day, as well as other leading systems including Murex and others.

SkySparc’s consultants demonstrated a level of expertise that is rare to find; they really understood the business intent and worked flexibly and intelligently to meet that requirement.
George Partida, Toyota Financial Services

Advisory and implementation expertise is vital to deliver complex, business-critical system upgrade projects without disrupting business-as-usual activities. Over many years, SkySparc has built a dedicated, market-leading team of experienced and skilled upgrade specialists across all sectors and geographies.

Based on our unparalleled experience in executing system and patch upgrades for large, complex organizations, SkySparc offers a range of packages, leveraging our consultants’ experience, OmniFi’s automated testing capabilities, SkySparc’s extensive test library and proven methodology. Our award-winning Patch Upgrade as-a-Service combines these components to deliver maximum automation and repeatability, thus minimizing TCO, risk and timelines.

SkySparc’s consultants were really able to shine a light on the details of the upgrade process through their testing expertise and methodology.
Johan Kreszner, DSTA

Patch Upgrade
as-a-Service

User-friendly
future-proofing
in a fast-paced world

Smooth IFRS9-driven patch upgrade

SkySparc supported hedge accounting efficiency for Telia, with automated testing of an upgrade to its ASP-based TMS. Read more

Increased security and efficiency

A rolling program implemented by SkySparc has increased patch upgrade frequency, thus reducing timelines and risks for the Dutch State Treasury Agency. Read more

Operational stability delivered on budget, on time

SkySparc provided onsite support to help this central bank implement a back-up site for its business-critical systems, as part of a major failover program. Our consulting expertise enabled the client to replicate treasury management system functionality remotely, following a smooth, timely and efficient testing phase. Read more

Painless patch upgrades

We assisted this savings and mortgage provider to manage a patch upgrade efficiently, re-purposing scripts and test cases from their earlier upgrade and automating the systems integration and user acceptance testing using OmniFi. Read more

End-to-end upgrade support

We were appointed sole advisor for this asset manager’s upgrade. We were responsible for data migration and quality assurance and assisted in other areas such as interface building and various configuration tasks. Read more

Quality upgrade assured

SkySparc provided comprehensive quality assurance services to a leading EURO central bank during their upgrade project. The requirement included a solution for thorough and effective testing of all migrated data. Read more

Data quality improved

A systems upgrade provided the opportunity to thoroughly cleanse legacy data and improve performance for SEB Pank Estonia.
Read more

Archiving costs reduced, accessibility enhanced

Our client needed to maintain access to archived data without the need to retain costly legacy systems. Our solution uses OmniFi to access both archived and live data.

SkySparc’s consultants have excellent system knowledge, as well as a deep understanding of financial instruments, so we knew they would bring the additional skills as well as resources we needed. The fit was right for us.
Tõnu Tomann, SEB Pank Estonia

Risk management, regulatory compliance and performance measurement are prime client concerns and a major area of our consulting practice. Our consultants offer support on requirements analysis, insight into regulatory requirements and provide financial and technical expertise from initial scoping to implementation.

SkySparc’s consulting services cover all aspects of credit, market and operational risk, optimizing systems and automating processes for peak performance and effectiveness. In addition, we support clients’ efforts to adjust smoothly to new regulatory requirements – including IFRS 9, MiFID II and the upcoming phasing-out of IBOR – and to handle related reporting obligations.

With SkySparc’s support, SPF went live with MIFID II-compliant connections to three bond-trading platforms in two days.
Kees Jan Willemsens, Operations Manager, SPF Beheer

Examples of assignments
– Risk, compliance and performance

IBOR migration

Over the past 12-18 months, SkySparc has been working with clients across many impacted sectors – central banks, banks, asset managers and corporate treasuries – to ensure a smooth, robust and compliant migration. We have developed a customizable methodology that combines in-depth process management expertise with high levels of automation, leveraging OmniFi. Read more

MiFID II-compliant bond trading

For the Dutch asset manager, SPF Beheer, SkySparc delivered MiFID II-compliant automated bond-trading capabilities on-time and on-budget. Read more

Valuations solution reduces funding costs

This award-winning solution enabled Toyota Financial Services to achieve a best-practice valuations process, make use of more structured financing options and reduce their funding costs. Read more

Enhanced risk reporting through automation

We helped a central bank’s risk department to automate operational risk reports, thereby improving quality and timeliness, enabling staff to focus on providing value-added analysis and commentary. SkySparc consultants then trained client staff to design and create customised reports for encrypted distribution, using OmniFi’s report-building capabilities. Read more

Risk reporting

This large multinational corporate treasury wanted to automate its risk reporting. We built and implemented automated, scheduled reporting for mark-to-market, multi-entity daily liquidity positions, counterparty exposures, FX exposures and other key reports for easy distribution by email and via their in-house portal.

EMIR reporting

SkySparc designed and implemented a solution to automate mandatory reporting to the REGIS-TR trade repository for this asset manager’s EMIR reporting requirements.

Basel III

We also assisted a major European bank with its Basel III reporting, and extended the use of data held in the accounting module of its treasury management system. Read more

Solvency II reporting

For our insurance client, If, we provided an automated, flexible solution to extract and send risk management data from its treasury management system to a data warehouse, thus simplifying their Solvency II reporting. Read more

Deeper insight into performance data

We automated reconciliation of performance data between If's treasury management and investment accounting systems, giving managers deeper insights into key performance data. Read more

SkySparc’s consultants have a long track-record in helping clients to automate and re-engineer their business processes, saving time, costs and reducing their operational risk. Consultants combine their extensive financial and technical expertise with a deep understanding of client circumstances and priorities to ensure treasury operations and processes are optimised to support business objectives.

As new technologies emerge, SkySparc’s consultants are working with clients to take advantage of emerging tools and capabilities, such as cloud and APIs, to deliver more efficient, streamlined, end-to-end processes. Recent projects include integration of subsidiaries into global treasury and accounting environments, report reengineering and automation, and enhanced operational risk reporting.

SkySparc consultants were very proactive and focused on problem solving. They communicated transparently, which really helped us making decisions on how to deal with problems.
Nente Ravestein, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)

Examples of assignments
– Operational excellence

Reuse, reduce, recycle

The test automation expertise of SkySparc's consultants was instrumental to this central banking client's vision to increase the capacity, speed and quality of testing capabilities.

Automated testing and reconciliation challenge

SkySparc consultants developed a prototype routine to test a new TMS/GL interface, then monitor and reconcile entries across the platforms, for a US-based corporate client. Read more

Re-engineering reporting

A corporate treasury has complex reporting requirements to multiple subsidiaries. We re-engineered their key reports. First, we carefully analyzed their existing manual process to identify inefficiencies. Then we automated the streamlined process, improving overall quality and reducing administrative work – leaving more time for acting on the data. Read more

Eliminating manual processing across key business processes

Toyota Financial Services can now run key repetitive processes automatically, without manual work. Read more

System review methodology

Our system review methodology has helped clients to improve and future-proof operational performance and guard against operational risk. This three-stage methodology analyzes and benchmarks the performance of your system – and then recommends and implements enhancements. Read more

Benchmarking measures operational performance and tests future resilience

SkySparc was asked to undertake a detailed system review for one of the world’s largest central banks. We benchmarked performance and highlighted the enhancements needed to future-proof the system and reduce operational risk. Read more

Automated reconciliation for deeper insight into performance data

Automating the reconciliation process improved the transparency of key data as well as the accuracy and speed of the process for IF insurance company’s accounting department. Read more

Daily data transfer required for collateral management outsourcing

Our client wanted to outsource collateral management for OTC derivatives but needed an automated solution for daily transfer of large volumes of transaction data. We automated this complex process using OmniFi. Read more

Reporting automated

As part of a portfolio management system upgrade, we re-engineered this asset management client's reporting processes. Our client now uses OmniFi to automate all its reporting needs.

SkySparc’s consultants were very supportive and knowledgeable, ready with alternatives and solutions to every small issue.
Anita Enström, If Insurance

Our consultants’ expertise and knowledge make SkySparc the trusted partner for many clients’ system integration projects. We can help you achieve data synchronization between your core portfolio, treasury and risk management system and other internal and external systems, using our award-winning OmniFi integration software.

Notable client projects include interface development and implementation to support automated data exchange, designing and building workflows to support an enterprise-wide data warehouse and cross-functional integration initiatives to support data analysis, reconciliation and reporting. Our consultants’ experience of such projects extends from core cash, treasury and risk functions to all related areas including accounting, collateral management and settlement.

This solution has enabled TFS to get the full benefits of evolving valuation practices: increased funding efficiency, proactive risk management and operational/regulatory best practice.
Vanita Aggarwal, Director, Treasury Risk, Toyota Financial Services

Examples of assignments
– Systems integration

Automated liquidity management solution

SkySparc proposed an automated data enrichment solution to support liquidity management optimization for global corporate client. Read more

Supporting the business case for outsourcing

SkySparc has provided a range of services to this Swedish bank as it has pursued a strategic choice to outsource the vast proportion of its technology needs. Read more

Interface automates data exchange to deliver a business-critical solution

We used OmniFi to extract complex data from Wallstreet Suite and re-map it to Numerix Portfolio, delivering an award-winning valuations solution. Read more

A seamless process for covered bonds

We built an automated process for managing covered bond transactions associated with this client’s mortgage business. Our solution uses OmniFi to import the data from the mortgage system, copy it between portfolios and export transactions and market rates to our client’s data warehouse in a seamless overnight process.

An end to manual upload

This bank was manually uploading files of OTC derivatives trade data to complete mandatory reporting to its trade repository. Our solution extracts the data, configures the report to the required format and uploads it, saving time and reducing errors.

Dynamic data collection

This pension company’s risk management team wanted to access data for analysis directly from its core MATLAB application. We used OmniFi to provide an automated, cost effective solution. Read more

Central bank reporting automated

We also developed a new interface for automating monthly central bank reporting as part of this pensions company’s portfolio management system upgrade.

Interface was key to outsourcing collateral management

Our client wanted to outsource collateral management of OTC derivatives. Our interface was fast - and flexible enough to accommodate changes to specifications and instruments. Read more

As clients’ system needs evolve, SkySparc has responded to growing demand for transition and archiving services, which ensure continuity, security and integrity of transaction data. SkySparc’s consultants have recently conducted several complex transition projects across our client spectrum, using their expertise to ensure transaction records remain easily accessible following migration to a new core platform. SkySparc’s transition and archiving service spans a range of needs, covering migrations between different systems as well as new versions of the same system.

SkySparc consultants partnered with in-house staff to deliver on schedule and on budget a tailored solution using OmniFi to format and transform data from Wallstreet Suite ASP to an internal data warehouse solution.
Hydro - Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company

Examples of assignments
– Transition and archiving

A comprehensive data archiving solution to Finnish local government pension institution Keva

Keva had migrated to a new treasury system some years ago and needed easy access to its historical data in Finance KIT 6.5. The archiving solution covered static, transaction and market data going back to 1994. The project drawn upon the experience of SkySparc consultants in articulating and documenting requirement specifications, a strong methodology developed by SkySparc to handle high data volumes, and OmniFi’s testing, reporting and workflow management capabilities.

Archiving project for US-based corporate

For a longstanding corporate treasury client, SkySparc provided a tailored data archiving solution.

Central bank system migration

A large Eurosystem central bank relied on SkySparc consulting support at multiple stages during its transition to a new platform.

Corporate treasury archiving support

Onsite and offsite consulting support from SkySparc enabled Hydro, the Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, to archive data efficiently following migration to a new treasury management system. SkySparc consultants partnered with in-house staff to deliver on schedule and on budget a tailored solution using OmniFi to format and transform data from Wallstreet Suite ASP to an internal data warehouse solution.

We were impressed with SkySparc’s expertise in developing a tailored and flexible archiving solution and delighted with the overall efficiency of the project.
Maija Sarlomo, Head of Investment Performance and Risk Control, Keva