Crest-APS
CREST, the real-time settlement system for UK and Irish shares and other corporate securities, is fundamental to the domestic market settlements industry for the UK and Ireland. CREST is responsible for settlement of transactions in equities, corporate securities, gilts, money market instruments and international securities.
Complementary to the functionality available within the CREST user interface, SI’s Crest-APS application enables a payment bank to automate information retrieval, allowing the requested information to be used to monitor positions, amend caps and to automatically make postings to external accounting systems.
Features at a glance
Universal Benefits
Crest-APS is compatible and fully integrated with Cope Payments and with back-office applications. It is compatible with the Syntegra and SWIFT CREST gateways.
Crest-APS provides query processing and storage for data retrieved from CREST for as many days as required. System access and security are fully integrated within Crest-APS and are administered using the comprehensive and flexible security features deployed across all SI products. Crest-APS includes site contingency for disaster recovery, enabling users to resume operations virtually following an outage of the main site, and provides resiliency to both the hardware and software, with fast recovery times in the event of a failure.
The automatically-refreshed Inter-Bank Position Enquiries reduce the chance of missing any exposure risks that might occur during the day.
The Crest-APS automated schedule issues CREST Position and Participant Enquiries and monitors the CREST diary events such that End of Day reconciliation can be configured without manual intervention, generating accounting entries and settlement messages as required.
The extensive database is specifically designed to increase the percentage of straight through payments to reduce costs and optimise transaction profitability. A wide range of enquiry and reporting facilities enhances transaction visibility and control which leads to a reduction in processing errors, enhances the customer service proposition and aids the management of risk.
The application and technology platform have together been designed for online, real-time transaction processing at significant volumes and incorporate full fault tolerance within the standard architecture. The integration of CREST Settlement processing in a single solution offers the opportunity to both reduce costs and enhance production management.