Top TRM Applications Vendors

In 2013, the Treasury and Risk Management (TRM) applications market rose 8.5% to reach $2.2 billion in license, maintenance and subscription revenues. The decent growth reflected the continuing rebound of key constituents such as banks and multinationals as they reinvested in new applications to help them mitigate risks and automate critical functions from cash management to hedge accounting.

In addition the migration from traditional on-premise implementation to Cloud-based TRM applications was a key driver behind the growth of a number of vendors including Bellin, Kyriba, and Reval. In fact, Reval was the fastest-growing TRM applications vendor among the top 10 in 2013, taking advantage of strong sales in both corporates and financial institutions around the world.

Last year Misys was the biggest TRM applications vendor securing a 13% share following its 2011 acquisition of Sophis and the subsequent merger with Turaz through a private buy-out deal from Vista Equity Partners.

SunGard Financial Systems was the No. 2 vendor in 2013 as it added incremental revenues from emerging markets, while streamlining its operations at home primarily through selling off noncore assets. China and India as well as countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America now represent as much as 10% of the business of SunGard Financial Systems, which now account for the bulk of its business selling financial and TRM solutions.

ION Trading zoomed to be the third-ranked vendor in the TRM applications market having acquired IT2 through Wallstreet Systems, Financial Software Systems, and Triple Point with the help of its parent TA Associates in 2013. ION Trading’s TRM revenues combined those of Anvil, Financial Software Systems, IT2, Triple Point, WallStreet Systems and its own ION Trading risk aggregation operations.

Here are the rankings of the top TRM applications vendors in 2013
and their market shares last year.

Source: Apps Run The World, March 2014

For in-depth analysis of the performance of these top TRM applications vendors, please follow the link for their profiles, which are based on our SCORES methodology that measures their growth along six dimensions: Strengths, Customers, Opportunities, Risks, Ecosystem, Share. For more on our SCORES methodology, check here. Don’t forget to look up our TRM taxonomy and hundreds of TRM customers that have been taking advantage of the latest innovation from these vendors.

Definition Of Treasury And Risk Management (TRM) Applications

Treasury and Risk Management applications are designed to automate corporate and banking functions pertaining to managing cash and liquidity, identifying and measuring financial risks as well as other assets, collaterals and underlying instruments that could impact an organization’s ability to sustain itself financially and operationally, while meeting regulatory requirements.

The market for treasury and risk management applications covers standalone and/or integrated products that automate business processes to support corporate treasury operations (including the treasuries of financial services enterprises) with the corresponding financial institution functionality and optimize related cash management, deal management, and risk management functions as follows:

• Cash management automation includes both discrete and interlocking treasury processes involving electronic payment authorization, bank relationship management, cash forecasting, and others.
• Deal management automation includes processes for the implementation of trading controls, the creation of new instruments and asset classes, market data interface from manual or third-party sources, and others.
• Risk management automation includes performance analysis, various metrics calculations used in fixed-income portfolio analysis, market-to-market valuations, energy trading and risk management, and compliance with regulations and standards such as Basel III, Dodd Frank, European Market Infrastructure Regulation, Financial Accounting Standard, International Financial Reporting Standards, Single European Payments Area, Solvency II, and others.

TRM Market Forecast

Treasury and risk management applications vendors are expected to see newfound momentum in the next five years as a wave of structural changes are sweeping the marketplace.

In the wake of financial crisis and market consolidation, TRM vendors will experience rebounding demand as banks and corporate customers boost their software spending to gain visibility into their treasury, foreign exchange, risk management functions with a holistic system.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the outlook for TRM applications market with weaker players being acquired by better-financed vendors, customers becoming more receptive to Cloud-based products to reduce implementation costs, and integrated technology solutions replacing discrete and oftentimes manual processes for everything from bank communication to exposure management, not to mention the onerous task of satisfying an array of recently-enacted financial rules and compliance activities from Dodd Frank to European Market Infrastructure Regulation.

Such drivers are likely to propel the TRM applications market from $2.2 billion in 2013 to $3.5 billion through 2018 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.3%, compared with 8.5% when we last updated the report in 2011 covering the 2010-2015 forecast period.

Less than three years after we published the report, vendors such as Contigo, FinArch, IT2, Sophis, Triple Point Technology, Wall Street Systems, and others have been acquired by bigger players. Vendors that were struggling after the financial crisis have been given a new lease on life with better economy of scale and additional cross-sell and upsell opportunities alongside their new parents. Acquirers such as ION Trading, Misys, Wolters Kluwer, and many others could vastly expand their reach through an extensive TRM product portfolio.

Vendors such as SunGard that have been downsizing in the post-crisis era through cost-cutting measures and spin-offs are now emphasizing organic growth as their installed base regains the appetite for more TRM applications and complementary solutions.

At the same time, improved economic conditions in North America and many parts of Europe are also conducive to jumpstart the TRM applications market as banks and corporations turn to a new generation of treasury, analytics and risk management tools to help them navigate an increasingly global and interconnected marketplace.

Growth in the TRM applications market will not be distributed evenly. License sales are projected to grow less than 5% over the next five years as conventional software implementations are being replaced by Cloud delivery for cost and accessibility reasons.

Support and maintenance revenues will fare slightly better than license sales as both ERP and on-premise applications vendors curry favor with their long-time customers with more differentiated services offerings from custom development to hybrid hosting.

Meanwhile, multi-tenant Cloud delivery of TRM applications will grow the fastest through the forecast period because of the proliferation of online services and regular software updates that are easier to distribute, scale and consume around the globe. Cloud delivery of TRM applications has also become a prerequisite for a new generation of users that are more mobile than ever.

By the same token, Treasury workstation vendors, many of which have already adopted Cloud delivery as the primary means to sell their products, are projected to grow faster than those focusing exclusively on risk management.

There will be growing pains for many TRM applications vendors, some of which may have to deleverage their balance sheets after years of acquisitions. The shift to Cloud delivery from traditional on-premise implementation may take longer for some vendors, while subscription revenues may take longer to materialize because of revenue recognition rules.

Looming in the background is another potential financial crisis – exacerbated by the interlocking ties between established banks and emerging markets – that could have serious repercussions for TRM applications vendors and their customers for years to come.

The biggest threat to the TRM applications market may well be coming from within. As interest rates have begun to rise in many countries, funds that would have gone to private equity firms(now a bedrock of the TRM applications market because of their investment in major vendors including ION Trading, Misys, and SunGard) may flee to otherwise ho-hum investments from bonds to precious metals that may end up becoming less risky. Investors who find their private equity partners less attractive than other vehicles in the coming years could prompt these PE firms to cash out or flip their TRM investments earlier than expected, resulting in more volatility for all the key stakeholders involved.

TRM Applications Run Vertical Industries

What do banks, energy producers and car makers have in common? All of them are likely candidates to propel the Treasury and Risk Management applications market to new heights in 2014.

The banking and financial services (BFS) industry already accounts for more than half of the installations being tracked by Apps Run Treasury customer database, which covers more than 4,000 entities that run different TRM applications.

While the BFS vertical continues to struggle after the financial crisis, IT spend among banks, insurers and players in the capital markets has started to recover due to increased emphasis on risk management and regulatory compliance.

For example, Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd, formerly iFlex, saw an 11% rise in revenues in fiscal 2013 and its top 10 customers accounted for 38% of its total revenues in 2013, up from 36% in 2012, suggesting big banks such as Citigroup, a major user of iFlex software, have been spending more with IT providers like Oracle.

On the other hand, vendors like Temenos have experienced multiple wins in emerging markets where banks and financial services companies begin investing in everything from core banking systems to best-of-breed applications shoring up their operations with the latest in straight through processing and compliance and tax.

Barring another financial crisis brewing in some troubled countries that could undermine global banks, the onslaught of regulations that have begun to take effect should help the BFS vertical better withstand any future shock. The question is whether that translates into any acceleration in TRM investment over the next 12 to 24 months.

It is no wonder that vendors that specialize in energy trading and risk management applications cater to financial institutions especially their trading operations as much as energy-related companies, which represent a major contributor to the TRM market.

Over the past year, the energy sector has been relying on enterprise applications to drive productivity, while shoring up the infrastructure to accommodate the booming oil and gas industry in North America and increased demand for alternative fuel in other regions.

Many enterprise applications including Aspen Technology have fared well during the upturn. Aspen, which sells to both upstream and downstream energy manufacturing and supply chain applications, posted a 44% jump in software revenues for its fiscal 2013.

TRM applications vendors that focus on energy vertical have also benefited from the oil and gas bonanza over the past year. Brady, which specializes in applications for physical and derivative trading and risk management in the energy sector, saw a 20% rise in software revenues in 2013.

Then there is the automotive industry, which saw blockbuster results in many parts of the world last year. Buoyed by robust new vehicle sales in North America, global automotive OEMs such as Daimler, General Motors, and Toyota have been on a full throttle. Since GM emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, it has announced investment plans of more than $10 billion in its US operations. For the fiscal year ending in March 2014, Toyota, the world’s biggest car maker by volume, is expected to post a net profit that could surpass that of the record level it achieved in fiscal 2007.

For more than a decade, major automotive OEMS like BMW, Daimler, and Toyota have been running a mix of Treasury and Risk Management applications from vendors such as Wallstreet Systems, now a part of ION Trading, SunGard Financial Systems and SAP. On the other hand, Hyundai Motors, Renault, and Suzuki appear to have not decided on standardizing on any TRM application vendor.

In the case of Daimler AG, the auto maker customized and configured SAP ERP modules including Treasury under an $120-million investment program in 2013 to expand its Detroit Diesel production facility, part of its North American Truck Division in Redford, Michigan. In other divisions of its worldwide operations, Daimler runs Wallstreet Suite, SunGard Ambit Asset Liability Management and other TRM applications.

Based on Apps Run Treasury customer database, SAP, SunGard and Wallstreet Systems are all well represented among top automotive OEMs from GM to Toyota. Despite their considerable market share among the top OEMs, Bellin, the Ettenheim, Germany-based TRM applications vendor, has given the top three a run for their money by winning deals from tier-1 and tier-2 automotive suppliers such as Behr GmbH & Co. KG, SMR Automotive Mirror Systems, Toyota Motor Europe NV, and Webasto AG.

For 2014 the issue is whether these auto makers and their suppliers, striving to boost efficiency and achieve enhanced visibility into their far-flung operations, will adopt a global standard package in an effort to streamline the vast portfolio of their TRM applications.

PE Firms Own Big 3 in TRM

Over the past few years the Treasury and Risk Management applications market has been hit by a wave of consolidations that completely transformed the competitive landscape and there’s no end in sight.

Chief among them was a series of acquisitions in the TRM and adjacent markets with an estimated total value of more than $1.7 billion made by Ion Investment Group, which is backed by the $18-billion-strong private equity firm TA Associates.

Other 2013 noteworthy deals included Trayport buying Contigo to become a powerhouse in the commodity trading and risk management applications market.

In July 2013 ION Investment acquired Triple Point Technology for its commodity trading and risk management applications for $830 million, according to TA Associates. That followed a trio of purchases of IT2 for Cloud-based treasury management applications, Financial Software Systems for portfolio management applications and Ffastfill for derivative trading software.

Prior to that, ION paid $550 million for WallStreet Systems, which specialized in FX trade processing and treasury software, in July 2011. In February 2012 ION also completed the $46 million buyout of Patsystems for front-end trading tool.

The result is a company with about 2,700 employees and more than 2,000 customers. ION said over 3000 traders use its front end solutions worldwide daily while tens of thousands rely on its ION platform for their day to day trading.

Combining its trading tools with an array of treasury, risk management and capital markets software products has catapulted ION to become one of the biggest TRM applications vendors in the world.

In 2011 ION Trading was a minor player in TRM applications with less than 1% market share. Today it has nearly 8% share gaining the No. 3 spot in a highly fragmented market with scores of suite and best-of-breed software providers.

While ION Trading appears to be leading the charge behind this rapid expansion, some of its recent acquisitions such as Triple Point and Financial Software Systems have remained fairly independent with their own website and branding intact.

However some of the individuals associated with recent acquisitions have cut their ties to ION. On Glassdoor, a career site, comments made by these former employees painted a rather gloomy outlook of the acquired assets, or for that matter ION, because of a dearth of information on the company strategy and direction from ION management to its increasing number of employees with redundancy serving as the backdrop.

While the amount of dissatisfaction is not surprising given the rapid changes going on across the organization, the only certainty seems to be the intent of ION to continue to expand through acquisitions.

The question is whether TA Associates is planning to adopt the same approach of its competitor Silver Lake Partners, which acquired SunGard for $11 billion in 2005. It’s also worth noting that Blackstone, KKR and investors like Goldman Sachs are co-owners of SunGard as well. Despite the turmoil that has reshaped SunGard’s key verticals including higher education, government and financial services, Silver Lake appears to be holding onto SunGard, which has continued to make new acquisitions to shore up its product portfolio after spinning off its higher education unit to Ellucian in 2012. Still changes are expected at SunGard and the unit responsible for TRM. Russ Fradin, who has been the company CEO since May 2011, is going to be more involved in the direction of the financial system unit starting January 2014 when Harold Finders, the long-time head of the unit, is expected to leave the company.

The next question is whether Misys, the current No. 1 TRM applications vendor, has additional plans to sustain its growth through acquisitions. In March 2011 Misys purchased Sophis for its cross-asset portfolio and risk management applications. Then private equity firm Vista Equity Partners acquired Misys in 2012 following its earlier purchase of Turaz for its Kondor line of risk management applications.

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