Citi Deploys Bots to Enhance Securities Services Settlements in Hong Kong

Hong Kong – Citi announced today that it has launched a unique proprietary solution in Hong Kong utilizing bot technology to offer its Securities Services clients real-time processing for matching and settlement, giving them the ability to view their trade status consistently throughout the day and to be able to activate stock borrowing in a timely fashion if needed.

Leveraging a unique straight-through processing and data solution designed in-house, this makes Citi the first sub-custodian bank in Hong Kong to offer this. It represents a significant development for clients over their current trade status visibility which relies on specific matching/settlement batch runs available to market participants. Any requests outside of these windows would have to be manually pulled. Citi's solution helps clients save manual queries and reduce potential fail trades/buy-in costs by determining early if they need to activate any necessary actions including stock borrowing.

"This new capability will also feed into our data platform, and automatically benefit clients using our data and API offering. Our data strategy seeks to improve real time integration with client systems and drive efficiency gains—online data dissemination and reporting is a key part of that," said Aashish Mishra, Asia Pacific Head of Direct Custody and Clearing (DCC).

Citi's solution uses bot technology to pull data throughout the day from the clearing house and depositary system in Hong Kong, send them in real time to Citi's custody system, and from there onwards to clients.

"We are very pleased to roll out this innovative service in Hong Kong, which is strategically one of the most important markets for both Citi Securities Services and its clients. This demonstrates Citi's ongoing commitment to working with market infrastructures to deliver real-time local solutions to our global clients," said Bryan Murphy, Global Head of Sales, DCC and Intermediaries Client Coverage.