Commerzbank Takes Summit For Back Office

COMMERZBANK has gone live with software from New York-based Summit Systems for its global back office derivatives processing needs.

The bank is using Summit version 2.5 to process a range of interest rate derivatives, including swaps, swaptions, caps/floors and exotics (Derivatives & Risk Technology, September 15).

Summit's derivatives software has been in use for some time at Commerz Financial Products (CFP), the bank's derivatives subsidiary (Derivatives Engineering & Technology, October 3, 1994).

Industry observers note that the Summit's installation at Commerzbank marks the first known systems decision in the parent bank's ongoing plan to merge its operations with those of its derivatives trading subsidiary (RMO, September 8).

A CFP source says it was a natural decision to expand Summit into Commerzbank proper, since the parent's mainframe systems were out-of-date.

Separately, Andre Horovitz, Commerzbank's head of risk management, has announced plans to roll out a modified version of Algorithmics' Riskwatch across the bank's trading desks.

Horovitz says the front office version of Algorithmics will be used to calculate hedges and perform scenario analyses prior to executing trades.