CIS appoints Satyam as IT partner

Mumbai: Satyam Computer Services announced today that it has been selected by CheckFree Investment Services (CIS), under a multi-year services agreement to become the preferred information technology partner to CIS in the development of its next generation CheckFree EPLÔ platform.

CIS is the recognised leading provider of a broad range of portfolio management services to help more than 275 financial institutions, including broker dealers, money managers and investment advisors, deliver portfolio management, performance measurement and reporting services to their clients, primarily for processing separately managed accounts (SMAs).

As of September 30, 2004, CIS clients used CheckFree APL to manage more than $1 trillion in assets, serving approximately 80 of the top Wall Street (sponsor) firms. Satyam will work with CheckFree to enhance CheckFree EPL's value proposition to the SMA marketplace. As reported, at the November 2003 Money Management Institute meeting, the SMA industry is projected to grow to $4 trillion by 2007. To support that growth, CheckFree has committed to its clients to help streamline their operations and reduce costs.

Alex Marasco, executive vice president and general manager, CheckFree Investment Services, said; "We did an analysis of organisations that have truly strong technical and domain competencies to find a development partner with both the knowledge and resources available to meet our aggressive timeline to bring the next generation platform to market. Satyam clearly stood out among the vendors for their expertise and their commitment to developing a platform that can support and expand with the SMA industry."

CheckFree EPL will be the next evolution of CheckFree's APLÔ Portfolio Accounting System, a real-time portfolio management system used by brokerage firms, banks, Turn Key Asset Management Providers (TAMPS), insurance companies and money management firms. This scalable, high-volume portfolio analysis and trade modelling processing system is used in the separately managed accounts (SMA) industry, where CheckFree APL serves as the conduit between program sponsors (e.g., brokerage firms) and investment managers in the fee-based market.

Speaking on this win, Ram Mynampati, president- commercial and healthcare business of Satyam, said: "It's a landmark achievement for Satyam as it reflects the depth of our financial services domain competency and our industry leading technology competencies specific to the capital markets industry."