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 our clients: we’ve been named Technology Consultant of the Year in Central Banking’s FinTech & RegTech Global Awards 2019, has previously won Treasury Today’s Adam Smith Award for Best Risk Management Solution and Central Banking’s Consultancy and Advisory Award.

Our unrivalled 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.

Our extensive range of system implementation and upgrade services includes Patch Upgrade as-a-Service (PUaaS), which leverages the expertise of a centralized team and dedicated resources to deliver lower risk, highly efficient upgrade projects, and independent quality assurance.

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

System upgrades are demanding and business-critical projects which have to be managed alongside business-as-usual activities. So having the right advisory and implementation expertise is vital. At SkySparc, we’ve built a dedicated, market-leading team of experienced and skilled upgrade specialists across all sectors and geographies.

SkySparc offers Patch Upgrade as-a-Service, with all projects performed by Quality Center, a centralized team with dedicated resources solely focused on patch upgrades. The team leverages SkySparc’s long experience executing upgrade projects and OmniFi’s automated testing capabilities. The centralized approach accelerates the continuous development of SkySparc’s extensive test library and further improves its proven patch upgrade methodology. As well as more efficient projects with lower risks, clients also benefit from comprehensive quality assurance from SkySparc as an independent third party.

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

Examples of assignments
– system upgrades

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

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

Test management for a complex project

This insurance client’s environment was complex: three different companies, each with different characteristics and needs. We provided test management and other assistance throughout the upgrade project, helping our client to meet a very tight deadline.

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 change and performance measurement are prime concerns for our clients and a major area of our consulting practice. We help with requirements analysis, insight into regulatory detail and providing financial and technical expertise through to implementation.

We are proud to be the winner of Treasury Today's Best Risk Management Solution 2014 for a project with Toyota Financial Services. Our solution enabled Toyota to achieve a best-practice valuations process, make use of more structured financing options and reduce their funding costs. Read more

I didn’t need to explain Wallstreet Suite and they quickly grasped the impact of Solvency II on our business requirements.
Anders Eriksson, If Insurance

Examples of assignments
– Risk, compliance and performance

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

We have a long track-record in helping clients to automate and re-engineer their business processes, saving time, costs and reducing their operational risk.

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. We certainly would consider using them again.
Nente Ravestein, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB)

Examples of assignments
– Processes and operations

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 expertise and knowledge make us the trusted partner for your 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.

Derivatives is an innovative area and changes occur frequently. The flexibility and transparency of the interface builder in OmniFi means it will be easy to maintain the interface and add new instruments when we need to.
Head of Middle Office at a European asset manager

Examples of assignments
– Systems integration

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