Delta Stream Product - First Derivatives plc

Centre of Excellence

Centre of Excellence Page 1 of 16

Delta Stream


First Derivatives’ Centre of Excellence enables clients to simultaneously reduce costs, improve quality and increase productivity. Centres of Excellence (CoEs), across all industries, are driven by cost and competence considerations. From medical services and support facilities to R&D and innovation centres they all seek economies of scale coupled with improved quality of service delivery. Their goal is to combine the collective knowledge and experience of a range of professionals, to deliver superior quality and service. This is precisely what FD’s CoE provides. Moreover, by optionally providing its CoE services on a Near Shore basis it provides further cost savings across the full spectrum of recruitment, training, IT infrastructure, desk space, career planning, HR and management overheads. First Derivative (FD) provides CoE services to a large number of financial institutions worldwide. Our service teams support a wide range of third-party and in-house systems, that span the complete transaction lifecycle across front, middle and back office and the processes that surround it. On the software development side this includes the full development lifecycle, from requirements gathering through to system test and rollout and all aspects of application management from initial deployment to operational monitoring and ongoing maintenance. It provides services for data management and data centre builds that support the process and the legal and regulatory requirements that must be adhered to. These and additional services are delivered and supported by multi-talented teams with skills spanning financial, technical and legal domains. Reduce Costs: FD uses its low-cost HQ location for recruiting, training and as requested, hosting its CoE Services using a combination of highly qualified graduates and seasoned professionals whose pairing provides an optimum balance of brainpower and enthusiasm coupled with experience and discipline. Clients are saved the recruitment, training, hiring and general management costs they would otherwise incur. Improve Quality: Proximity improves communication and task turnaround time. Streamlined best– practice processes ensure optimised, repeatable and high quality service delivery. We provide staff who are highly trained and have first-hand expertise on client sites across a variety of systems and product areas. As a result, a wealth of knowledge and experience is brought to each assignment. Increase Productivity: Follow-the-sun 24/7 availability across multi locations and close communication within them ensure quick identification and resolution of issues and fast turnaround on task completion. Our resource pool has the elasticity to respond to changes in demand, meaning that service delivery is predictable in terms of cost, quality and timeliness. Combined with the ability to ramp-up and scale down resources in line with peaks and troughs in service demand, this enables organisations to meet their internal targets, client commitments and regulatory obligations in a sustainable and repeatable manner.

We are a customer-focused organisation that works closely with our customers to react to the changing environment in which they operate and to achieve the best results by the application of skilled and motivated manpower, best of breed technology and best practices.

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FD Centre of Excellence Services FD has developed deep and wide expertise in all aspects of software development, system support and service provision through its experience since 1996, of supplying, implementing and supporting a range of systems in the world’s leading financial institutions. This, coupled with specific expertise in kdb+ technology for developing high performance, low latency solutions and further augmented by deep domain knowledge acquired from its consulting practice, enables FD to offer a range of Centre of Excellence services. These services currently include software development, infrastructure and application management, data management and expertise in legal and regulatory obligations.

Software Development Services

Vendor Services

Infrastructure Monitoring and Administration

Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Services

Our Centre of Excellence manages the full lifecycle from requirements gathering and design through to testing and release, all under a welldefined governance model that ensures quality and timely delivery. The centre has particular expertise in kdb+ and q in a pool of highly talented programmers, having many years of collective experience in delivering mission critical solutions to top tier investment banks, large financial institutions and hedge funds. Application support, upgrade, configuration management, migration, regression testing and parallel run verification for third party products including Calypso, Summit, Murex, Wall Street and Opics as well as inhouse proprietary or legacy systems. The expertise and service model reflect the in-depth knowledge gained as both a solutions provider and a trusted consultative partner advising on technology and system selection. Early warning and detection services for server and network maintenance, monitoring CPU levels, memory usage, disk space, latency analysis, performance tuning, alerts management, log scraping for root cause analysis, disk space management and backup and archiving processes. FD provides high calibre legal personnel to help its customers meet their regulatory and compliance obligations. Our consultants possess deep domain knowledge gained from previous regulatory engagements, many are qualified lawyers and all have undergone intensive in-house training on capital markets practices and technology. Uniquely, our legal consultants possess equally strong technical and market expertise enabling them in many cases to offer assistance on system level as well as legal challenges.

Data Management Services

Services for enterprise data management, reference data management, data analysis and remediation services for compliance with regulatory obligations.

Data Centre Builds

FD has extensive experience in the deployment and ongoing support of Data Centres to host and support our SaaS and DaaS service offerings. We make our applied methodology available to clients to help them deliver optimal hosting solutions that meet their required levels of performance, availability and scalability.

FD’s CoE expertise is based on a combination of practical real-life experience, that embodies skills and technical expertise that have been accumulated over multiple client engagements and many disparate environments. The skills and expertise have been distilled into best practices we now offer our clients. Our consultants possess skills not only in project management, business analysis, technical analysis, kdb+ and java technologies but also in legal, regulatory and compliance areas. Moreover they all possess detailed knowledge of the capital markets and the instruments, systems and practices that support them.

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Centre of Excellence Delivering CoE services is highly dependent on human resources and FD is uniquely placed in its ability to provide and maintain high levels of expertise in its delivery teams. It can draw from a deep pool of highlyskilled resources who have honed their skills over many projects, domains and asset classes. Through its consulting division its resources are continually at the forefront of new market and system developments while a rigorous recruitment and training policy for new hires ensures that the pipeline of skilled resources is maintained. This combination of experience, training and replenishment of its resources enables FD to meet the elastic demands of client needs without compromising on quality. All services can be provided on-site at client premises or for further cost saving from FD’s Near Shore centres. When delivered from our high quality service centres they avail of the robust technical infrastructures and VPNs over dedicated bandwidth that guarantee the required high levels of security, access control and resilience. Segregated areas with dedicated and monitored access points enforce physical security while intrusion detection and vulnerability tests provide protection against host and network attacks. Clustering and failover configurations along with Business Continuity Plans ensure resilience and high availability. All are offered under the umbrella of an “embassy” delivery model that enables clients to select the required levels of segregation and independence appropriate to their risk and budget profile.

Near Shore delivery option

FD’s Near Shore delivery option provides the ability to tap the cost-efficiencies of nearby low-cost centres rather than incur the higher expenses associated with the prime locations they serve. This applies not only to hiring, training and accommodation costs of delivery resources but also for their supporting services and infrastructure. Quality Pedigree Expertise

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Service Coverage

Engagement Model Training Costs

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Credentials Financially sound vendor quoted on London Stock exchange Over 700 professionals currently employed Experienced Financial Engineers and Software developers A broad range of services from development and application support to tasks for achieving legal and regulatory compliance and including a range of date centre and data management areas of expertise “Embassy” type model offering graded levels of segregation Employee mobility - all staff will meet all the necessary right to work and visa requirements Capital Markets Training Program (CMTP) ensuring a combination of domain knowledge and technical expertise. Low cost centres across the globe

It is the above combination of capability, costs and continuity that has made FD’s CoE service a compelling and successful choice for its customers. Sample projects include: • • • • • •

Establishing a centre of excellence for kdb+ software development and production support for internal and customer data queries Reducing the cost of post-trade settlement by using an FD Near Shore CoE to manage, monitor and maintain the settlement and confirmation processing systems rd Using FD’s CoE as a Quality Control centre for test management and execution on 3 party applications Streamlining the decommissioning of a Credit Enquiry and Monitoring system and its replacement by another by using services for analysis, integration and production support Adopting CoE as a means of assessing and defining their own internal off-shore CoE strategy. The risk mitigation approach enabled the client to validate the cost effectiveness and refine their delivery model to ensure no degradation of service Assisting a client who had limited budget, time and desk-space to perform the analysis, configuration rd and testing required to upgrade from a legacy version of a 3 party application to its most recent release Multiple CoE Areas of Expertise Software Development, Application Management, Data Management, Legal and Regulatory obligations, System and infrastructure Monitoring, Support, Data Centre builds, Testing, Documentation, Data remediation.... Page 4 of 16


Why CoE? The motivations for setting up a Centre of Excellence can vary across organisations. It may be driven by cost considerations; by removing duplication of resources and the overheads associated with pay, training and management. It may be driven by a decision to improve service quality; by assembling experts in close proximity engenders knowledge transfer and swift problem resolution. It may be a drive to improve productivity; by having teams working closely together to improve communication and increase turn-around time in new iterations of software, document review cycles or data transformation exercises. All are accommodated by FD’s CoE services.

Reduce Costs 

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Improve Quality

FD has streamlined the hiring and training costs of accelerating graduates to well informed, high skilled Capital Markets experts – and passes on the savings Eliminate cost and overheads associated with office space, training, hiring, reviews, holiday cover, sick leave and career management. Clients achieve On-demand capacity without the associated contingency costs and resource duplication

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Sharing of knowledge between resources, collaboration on problem solving and access to multiple experts in diverse areas Highly qualified, well-trained resources Avail of industry best practices, procedures and service efficiencies. Service quality and transparency via SLAs, KPIs and MIS reporting Delivery team are proficient in one or more computer languages and multiple technologies

Increase productivity    

24x7 follow-the-sun service provision and delivery capacity Proximity between resources improves communication and reduces task turnaround times Ability to ramp-up/ramp-down in response to changing needs Disaster Recovery and Continuity of Business provisioning in case of external disruption

CoEs are ultimately delivered by People and FD is selective about who it chooses to operate them FD recruits skilled resources to benefit from their experience and domain knowledge. Its pre-employment screening, recruitment and on-boarding processes have been industrialised to enable it to scale up at short notice and its core business is predicated upon flexing recruitment numbers to meet fluctuations in demand. As a result FD can ramp up dedicated resourcing for fixed periods at short notice and can also supply resources for additional ad hoc Statements of Work outside of the initial engagement. In addition, through careful capacity planning and service provider selection, it continually ensures it has sufficient excess capacity in its physical infrastructure to accommodate significant scaling of engagements.

FD’s CoE Philosophy Combining the knowledge and enthusiasm of highly-qualified graduates with experience of seasoned professionals to deliver an optimum blend of brainpower, expertise and discipline for delivering services at cost effective rates

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Sample Services Application Monitoring As financial institutions strive to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership of vendor packages, close attention is paid to the management of these applications through proactive monitoring of system performance, support services and periodic system health checks. FD provides monitoring screens that enable support teams to view metrics and statistics on individual servers at an infrastructure level, configurable with alerts to highlight when key indicators like memory utilisation, CPU, queue depths or disk usage exceed predefined limits. Early detection in this manner enables swift, targeted remedial action. Similarly, at the application level users can view details on engine status, processing backlogs, scheduled tasks, and information on long running queries when started and by whom. Legal Services FD’s CoE can assist organisations in interpreting regulations and implementing the necessary changes. We are engaged globally with Tier 1 investment bank clients, providing professional resources with experience across many regulatory initiatives including, but not limited to, Dodd Frank, FATCA, EMIR and AIFMD. Support Services FD has a well-defined and mature production support management process which allows effective capture, reporting, tracking and resolution of issues. The service includes: st  1 Line support and system monitoring, incidents and support requested are logged, solutions monitored and management reports produced. nd  2 Line support, incidents are analysed and resolved through configuration or small scale fixes. rd  3 Line support, bugs are fixed, incidents and problems managed and first and second line escalations and small enhancements made. Governance and transparency around support is achieved though well defined procedures for issue tracking, issue categorisation, agreed response time and escalation procedures via a dedicated service desk that provides a single point of contact for customers. Additional services are available for configuration changes and release management

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Case Studies Background: The Global Data Group within our client, a tier 1 US investment bank, provides data to both internal and external customers. The group utilizes a kdb+ database technology with reliable processes for data acquisition, data quality and production support. These tools deal with a wide range of asset classes, data types and frequencies that meet the existing and future trading, analytical and operational requirements for our client’s end users. Drivers: Our client wished to establish a cost effective centre of excellence for kdb+ development and production support to cater for the millions of customer queries sent on 24/7 basis. This required comprehensive project management skills and in-depth product knowledge, along with expert development skills in technologies such as PERL, Java, Unix, JIRA, Perforce and robust regression testing and software release procedures. The service was subsequently extended to other functional groups based on the success of the initial project. What we did: • Built a dedicated team, including an onsite team lead, Near Shore team lead and a group of highly skilled developers. • Formalised a Service Level Agreement and Business Continuity Plan. • Established a secure technological and Near Shore office infrastructure, meeting the highest facility standards. • Ongoing, intensive training of team members on the client’s methodology, development framework and other company practices. • Knowledge transfer (onsite to Near Shore/offshore). • Formalised communication mechanisms. • Leveraged FD’s expertise in kdb+ solutions.

Benefits: • Facilitated scaling of developer team size to meet budget/ project needs. • Proximity – Near Shore services facilitate physical and financial ease in travelling to the Near Shore location for training. • Reduce the dependency upon internal resources. • Equivalent time zones – Near Shore location is in a similar time zone to the company and crosses between the Asian, European and American trading sessions. • Reduced language barriers. • Faster turnaround and increased productivity • On-call production support 24 hours a day.

Background: FD had been working on a cross asset Calypso project as part of the business analysis team in a large European investment bank. The client approached FD to outsource their complete QA testing for all products and processes using their proposed Near Shore CoE model for Quality Assurance services. FD proposed a full skilled Calypso Near Shore CoE team at FD HQ with onsite representation for iterative solutions. Drivers: The client faced a great challenge to deliver a major cross asset, cross processes and cross functions plan in multiple phases over a 12 month period. The client required a highly experienced Calypso solution provider who understood their product suite and were fully trained on Calypso cross asset features. The client required test cases and test execution which could be achieved within their milestones on time and on budget. What we did: • Analysed Cross Asset Business requirements and identified all test cases. • Developed test scripts and test data. • Executed all test cases. • Scaled resourcing based on highly aggressive milestones in order to meet delivery schedule. • Onsite QA guidance throughout to manage the deliverables and communications within their large organisation.

Benefits: • Client went live with multiple projects on time and on budget. • QA service delivered at a fixed price. • FD absorbed all training, resource and relocation overheads. • Client received 1000’s of test cases for continuous execution and improvement. • A fixed-price servicing model created to scale their delivery team based on the complexity and volume of testing requirements.

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Case Studies Background: Follow-the-sun support model for a large UK bank’s 3rd Party Settlement and Confirmation Application (Wall Street Systems). The project was based around 5 application instances with differing base versions. Drivers: Reducing the cost of operating and maintaining their post-trade processing without compromising the quality of service What we did: • Weekend release, implementation and on call support model. • Technologies used: UNIX, SQL, Java, XML, Alpha VMS. • Monitoring performance & usage of live systems, including monitoring of overnight batches and resolving failures. • App Upgrades / Migrations / Bug fixes / Fix Testing. • Performing system maintenance in terms of setting up new static data such as accounts / portfolios / currencies / routing / payment and receipt release times. • Analysing issues and changes through weekly Incident and Change Management to ensure non re-occurrence of system and business impacting issues. • Ongoing intensive training of team members on new system requirements, processes and procedures. • Leveraged FD’s expertise and experience in WSS system support.

Benefits: • Low cost. • Excellent training. • Unrivalled staff retention. • Ease of staff augmenting. • Holiday and sickness cover. • Proximity – Near Shore services facilitate physically and financially easier travel to the Near Shore location for training. • Faster turnaround on issue resolution and increased productivity. • Flexibility on providing extra support as and when needed for major releases. • Dedicated On-Call support and assistance team, providing L1 & L2 support for over 1,000 active global users. • Onshore and Near Shore bases providing 24/5.5 daily support for issues reported via hotline, email or ticketing system. • Knowledge transfer (between onsite/offsite)

Background: FD had built a strong relationship with a client, a large UK financial institution, through a number of onsite projects. The client approached FD to help in forming a strategy for their proposed offshore model as part of their support and development services. FD proposed an interim hybrid on shore/near Shore CoE team at FD HQ as a POC for client’s APAC Centre of Excellence Drivers: The client wanted to pilot a Near Shore project before embarking on their long-term off shore strategy. The goal was to ensure that there was no degradation in production service levels while still maintaining pace of development during the transition period. It was also a medium for assessing the efficiency of the newly adopted processes and amending them where appropriate. In order to maintain service levels while meeting headcount and cost challenges they sought early identification/resolution of transition issues. They required resources to be available onsite within 24hrs and have a Near Shore Business Continuity Plan in place What we did: • Ramped up onsite team to build short-term resource buffer. • Completed infrastructure set-up phase. • Staggered roll-off of project team to Near Shore location to mitigate risk. • Completed full migration within six months • Reverted to original team size.

Benefits: • Pilot proved successful and FD were asked to provide resources/training for initial offshore project. • Headcount and cost objectives were met six months ahead of deadline. • FD absorbed all training, resource and relocation overheads.

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Case Studies Background: A legacy system in a large UK financial conglomerate provided finance teams with global, cross product and net credit reserve information, across asset classes. The solution was being decommissioned and has been replaced by a new credit risk system Drivers: The client needed resources with comprehensive technical skills, solid domain knowledge and good communication skills to assist in the transition. The teams needed to be well structured with strong group leaders surrounded by a number of enthusiastic team players. What we did: • Technical support on a 24/5 basis, with on-call support over the weekend. • Resolving of system user queries, incidents and automated system alerts. • Managing all incoming and outgoing file and data streams. • Investigating and fixing any job or process failures, data corruption, erroneous front end figures, rejected trades and performance issues. • Integrate with other credit risk systems in the organisation. • Ensuring testing strategy for full implementation is durable and effective • Running tests to assess the impact of large scale trade migrations and novations to the bank’s credit risk exposure.

Benefits: • All teams involved in delivering significant improvements in operating model and constantly reducing operational risk. • Full understanding of changes to the credit risk system, from UAT testing with the Unicorn team to OAT testing with PreProduction Support team and right through to the release to Production monitored by the Production Support team • Careful maintenance of support documentation within teams to allow for easy roll on and roll off of resources. • Providing morning status reports to all end users. • Results from tests were used to identify any breaches to trading limits in advance of the actual migration event, to avoid interruptions to normal trading activity.

Background: FD had engaged with a major South African bank to deliver a full Calypso upgrade from version 9 to version 13. As part of the project FD proposed a hybrid onsite/Near Shore model to provide Project Management, Technical Analysis, Business Analysis and Quality Assurance functions. Drivers: The client had set aggressive timelines to deliver the upgrade on its front-to-back cross-asset platform. With a significant volume of functional and technical changes between versions, the client wanted to implement a robust, efficient and flexible upgrade and testing solution. The client had additional challenges in relation to budget, headcount and desk-space so it required a partner to take ownership of the key deliverables and to provide a significant proportion of these services from a Near Shore location. What we did: • Provided a pre-engagement on-site POC of our automated tools capability to help shape the delivery scope. • Partnered with the client to prepare a project plan defining which functions would best be delivered Near Shore • Provided flexible resourcing to scale up or down and rotation between on-site and Near Shore locations as required. • Deployed and customised automated solutions from Near Shore location.

Benefits: • FD successfully built all technical deliverables from Near Shore location. • Provided resources on-site at short notice to ramp up onsite team. • Partnership agreement provided client comfort by mitigating some delivery risk. • Client expected to deliver project on time at fixed price. • Automated tools provided significant resource and time saving.

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Resource Quality, Supply and Sustainability Quality, supply and sustainability of high calibre, knowledgeable staff is critical to the delivery of our CoE service. Underpinning our service delivery is a large core of seasoned, highly experienced practitioners who have worked in banks, software development companies or other consultancies. This team brings hands-on experience across a range of disciplines including technology, finance and legal. FD consultants are continually expanding that core competence in our Capital Markets Practice through working client assignments and working across multiple projects, systems and asset classes. Further supporting the supply chain are graduates recruited directly from Universities who participate in our Capital Markets Training Programme, (CMTP) for a deep and thorough training in the financial markets and its technology. This combination of experience, education and on-going training ensures that our high calibre performance is maintained and keeps pace with market changes. Coupled with a low attrition rate of less than 8% per annum, this ensures that we can respond quickly to any increase in requirements for client initiatives. The training offered at FD focuses not only on initial training and immediate effectiveness but also on the continuously developing skills. Even after our employees start their on-site deployment, they will remain on the CMTP for a period of 24 months where they will have the opportunity to hone their leadership and management skills as well as their financial and technical abilities. Throughout their career they receive direction and tuition to help them continue their formal education.

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FD has successfully grown and adapted to various new environments without losing its sense of cohesion or compromising its principles. This resilience and adaptability is based on our ability to continually attract and retain world class resources. We recruit independent thinkers and achievement orientated individuals with the expectation that they are self starters – individuals who ensure they have armed themselves with the required level of information and knowledge to meet the requirements of our clients. However, it is our culture that it is the glue that makes this possible, enabling colleagues old and new to work together to meet the demanding standards of our clients and shareholders. FD does not subscribe to the theory that you can eventually master a subject and learning therefore ceases to be a requirement. It cultivates an environment that is never complacent and is always growing, developing and straining at the confines placed upon it by those with smaller horizons

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Service Governance Project governance is an essential aspect of a successful CoE delivery. We believe in providing a management framework within which service information is fully transparent and by which decisions are enabled. Our framework is logical, robust and repeatable to govern your investment. It is also proven. The FD Governance Model is designed to ensure clear reporting lines for performance and status information to reach the client and FD decision makers. This enables control and direction to be exercised over the delivery of service. Processes The groups identified in the diagram will meet on pre-defined schedules. Performance reports and status information will be collated by the Service Delivery Leads, and will be escalated to the Service Delivery Working Group and the steering group according to defined thresholds. Protocols The governance organisation shown will be supported by protocols to manage the process: • Risks Actions, Issues, Dependencies (RAID) • Change Requests • Project Inception • Service Performance Reports (against KPIs for each element of service provided • Project Management Approaches tools and standards for all aspects of the service

Organisation Body Steering Committee

Activities  Undertake checkpoint reviews of the status of the CoE Services being offered  High level scoping of forthcoming deliverables and service provisions  Plan any scaling of the engagement  Ratify training requirements  Forum for discussing contractual and performance issues

Working Group

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Undertake checkpoint reviews of the status of the CoE services Day to day operation of the CoE Preparation of info and metrics for the Steering Committee Planning for engagement escalations Consider personnel requirements Implementation of the recommendations of the Steering Committee Liaising with business users

CoE Lead

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Coordination of CoE team Communicating requirements and Overseeing Service delivery and SLA metrics Preparing reviews Mentoring the CoE team Dealing with personnel issues and transitions

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On-boarding Process A smooth on-boarding process is a critical component of each Centre of Excellence engagement. In the short-term it provides early visibility into the collaboration and co-operation between both parties. This involves a series of on-shore workshops and documentation reviews to determine the scope, risks and responsibilities within the engagement. In the longer term it sets the parameters for the on-going service delivery in terms of support, incident management, SLAs and an agreed approach on how to assess and address new risks and challenges as they arise. Like all aspects of FD’’s service offering the on-boarding process combines elements of on-site and Near Shore as required.. It maximises proximity to streamline the initial knowledge transfer via face-to-face workshops while it leverages its low-cost location to deliver world class servicing at cost-effective rates. The on-board process follows a series of well defined, best practice steps as illustrated below:

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Knowledge Transfer Session: designed to gather requisite information from the client that will inform FD of the project scope, the system architecture and the internal and external tools used. Training Review Session: a session to identify knowledge gaps and to identify training requirements. Support Session: designed to understand the expectations of what levels of support are to be provided. Incident Levels Session: designed to map the flow of incidents which are created by the users or the technical applications from initiation to resolution and to set the process for change management and also for fix resolution processes to be incorporated before introducing changes into production. Severity Session: designed to define the severity levels and the escalation and communication processes required for each level. Testing protocols: designed to establish the protocols and testing methodologies that the team is expected to adhere to. KPI Session: designed to define which key performance indicators are required to be set to measure the performance of FD. Documentation Session: designed to establish the process for handover of changes into production and to establish what documentation requirements are to be set.

During the on-boarding process FD will place a core team of consultants onsite with the customer for a period of 4-8 weeks to review and, where appropriate, redefine existing documentation and procedures. The clarity of understanding and refinement of envisaged process re-engineering at this stage is often the lynchpin in the longer term success of the project for both parties. Migration from onsite to Near Shore if selected, typically starts after 2-3 months and a fully functional Near Shore support service is normally operational after 4 months. Crucially, however, our distribution of Near Shore service centres means that resources can continue to be available at short notice should the need arise.

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Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Where clients chose to have their service delivered from FD’s Near Shore centres it gains the additional benefit of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery procedures that ensure consistency of service in the event of hardware failure, system crashes or environmental disruptions. FD has furnished comprehensive Business Continuity Plans (BCP) and passed stringent disaster recovery tests to meet the exacting requirements of top financial institutions. The images below illustrate a sample BCP that details its various components including communication plans, response team responsibilities and alternative site provisions and also a disaster recovery plan outlining backup and restoration procedures.

To address security considerations FD offers an “embassy” model approach to service provision that enables clients to select segregation levels which are appropriate to their level of risk and budget: Gold level offers complete physical and logical separation including dedicated network, phone and power supply in a standalone facility. Silver offers logical separation within shared facilities, while Bronze is appropriate for non-data related services where segregation is not a priority.

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Other Services FD works with many of the world’s leading investment banks and hedge funds, helping them achieve success in an ever changing business environment. We capitalise on our experience as a provider of technological services and also as a dedicated product supplier. FD can find the right solution for you and has the expertise to get the job done. FD has a number of specialist practices headed by subject matter experts each with between 10-25 years of experience in the capital markets industry. Financial Markets Practice • Staff Augmentation • Operations • Clearing and Collateral • Electronic Markets • Commodities & Energy Trading • Market Data Services

Third Party Vendor Products • Kx • Murex • Calypso • Wall St. • Opics • Summit • Kondor+ • OpenLink • Loan IQ

Regulatory and Compliance • Dodd-Frank • FATCA • ISDA • AIFMD • EMIR • Non-Core Asset Disposal • Business Conduct Rules

Software and Services • Kx Development and Training Services • Kx Entperprise • Kx for Flow • Kx for Algos • Kx for Surveillance • Kx for Monitoring • Big Data Services • Centre of Excellence

Financial Services Practice: FD offers an in-depth knowledge of the capital markets combined with extensive technical expertise. We work with clients to gain an understanding of their individual and unique needs and offer a variety of services at competitive fees. We believe in investing in our people and endeavour to employ the brightest graduates along with proven winners from across the capital markets sector. Our Capital Markets Training Programme provides continued professional development for our consultants. Third Party Vendor Products: We have over 15 years experience of supplying implementation and support services to the world’s leading financial institutions on the choice and usage of vendor applications. We are not only experts in our field, but we have an expert methodology in place to ensure that our clients get the best advice. Our Vendor Services team is dedicated to giving you the best possible service in line with your expectations and requirements. Regulatory and Compliance: FD has a unique capability and proven track record in providing consultants who can add value from day one. Each possesses deep capital markets knowledge as well as legal and technical expertise. As a result, FD is ideally placed to assist organisations in interpreting regulations and implementing the necessary changes. Our typical consultant will have a legal qualification (many are qualified lawyers), experience in searching and extracting data from multiple systems as well as the ability to categorise and interpret vast amounts of documentation. Software & Services: kdb+ is a powerful “Big Data” platform, offering capabilities in reference data management, market data management, CEP, algorithmic and high-frequency trading, FX trading, treasury risk management and exchange management and surveillance. FD has been instrumental in selling Kx technology to the vast majority of the world’s leading financial institutions and has built a solid services business on our market leading expertise in the technology. We provide a full range of Kx services including : training, support and consulting. FD services offering can help you to achieve a number of business goals including faster speed-to-market accelerated by industry and technical experience while avoiding the cost and time required for internal training and skill development. FD’s services provide skilled personnel to work under your direction to help you develop, maintain, manage and support your applications. Our skilled professionals can help you manage fluctuating skill needs, skills gaps and changing staffing needs to meet your aggressive project timelines

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FD Corporate First Derivatives plc (“FD”) is a leading provider of software solutions and consulting services to the capital markets industry. Founded in 1996, FD occupies a niche market position in terms of deep domain knowledge and technical expertise. Headquartered in Ireland, FD has a global presence with offices across EMEA, the Americas and Asia Pacific.   

Publically held company on London Stock Exchange (LSE FDP.L) Headquartered in Newry, Co. Down, N Ireland 1500+ employees worldwide

Consulting Services:     

Multi-Vendor Services – Calypso, Murex, Wall Street, Summit, Opics… Legal, Regulatory and Compliance Data Management Software Development Big Data and Data Science

Big Data Solutions:     

Streams for Kx – high-volume data capture, analysis and distribution Kx for Flow – Foreign Exchange trading Kx for Algos – low-latency trading strategies and execution Kx for Surveillance – for regulators, exchanges and brokers Kx for AlgoLab – testing, validating and profiling algorithmic trading strategies

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Product Suite Kx Systems is a division of FD and has been a software leader in performing complex analytics on largescale streaming data for over two decades. Widely adopted worldwide by top financial services firms including Goldman Sachs, Millennium Capital and JPMorgan, Kx technology is also used in the pharmaceutical industry, by utilities and in other industries building Internet of Things and large-scale data applications. FD offers a range of Kx-based applications providing capabilities in reference data management, market data management, CEP, algorithmic and high-frequency trading, FX trading, treasury risk management and market surveillance.

FD provides a range of brochures on its products and services. For more information please contact us via our website or the numbers below

Contact Us New York +1 (212) 447-6700 Europe +44 (28) 302 52242 Asia-Pacific +61 (2) 9236 5700 [email protected] www.firstderivatives.com This information is subject to change without notice and is offered for information purposes only.

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