Driving operational alpha for a Tier 1 bank through SSI data remediation

A leading United Kingdom (UK)-based global financial institution, with extensive operations across retail, corporate and investment banking, manages a high volume of daily transactions across multiple jurisdictions and currencies, which necessitates a robust and clean reference data infrastructure.

The client’s standard settlement instructions (SSI) repository had become bloated, leading to significant ‘data entropy’. With over 500,000 records across various systems, the bank faced multiple challenges:

• Operational risk: A high volume of stale or redundant SSIs increased the likelihood of incorrect payment routing, resulting in settlement fails and manual repair costs
• Data fragmentation: Inconsistencies between the ‘golden source’ and downstream settlement platforms (products—fixed income, foreign exchange, money market, lending and derivatives) created reconciliation gaps
• Migration readiness: The financial institution required a lean and accurate data set to facilitate a smooth migration to the Murex platform
• Regulatory compliance: Many legacy SSIs did not meet current regulatory standards at the currency level (IBAN formats and specific field requirements for AED, SAR and DKK, for instance)

We deployed a specialised team of data analysts and domain experts to execute an end-to-end remediation and deactivation programme. The solution was delivered through a structured, three-pronged methodology:

1. Data extraction and multi-system reconciliation

• Extracted all SSI records from the golden source
• Reconciled these records with the historical settlement data from downstream systems (Calypso, Murex)
• Identified “stale” data, which was defined as any SSI not utilised for a settlement in the last 24 months

2. Deep-dive field remediation and compliance checks

• Currency-level audits: Conducted rigorous checks on mandatory fields to ensure compliance with global regulators (for instance, ensuring IBAN compliance for AED/SAR and BIC accuracy for DKK)
• Counterparty analysis: Performed granular reviews at the trading counterparty level to identify dormant accounts and recommend deactivation without affecting active trading relationships
• Technical validation: Addressed discrepancies where agents were marked ‘inactive’ in the master system but remained linked to active instructions in settlement systems

3. Governance and stakeholder approval

• Developed a comprehensive documentation trail for every recommended deactivation
• Synthesised findings into a presentation for the business board, securing formal approval for the deactivation of over 200,000 redundant records

The project delivered a ‘clean slate’ environment, which significantly enhanced the bank’s operational resilience.