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E-mailSalt Lake City, 22 February 2010
SunGard has launched Protegent Surveillance for firms that trade in the energy and commodity markets across natural gas, natural gas liquids, power, petroleum products and general commodities. Protegent helps these firms detect trading behaviors that increase the risk of regulatory action. SunGard’s Protegent suite of compliance, surveillance and supervision solutions offers financial institutions and energy companies greater visibility into potential risk factors related to suspicious trading activity, while helping to increase regulatory transparency.Regulatory scrutiny and fines continue to increase as a result of high profile cases involving energy market manipulation. Firms trading in energy and commodity markets must be prepared to demonstrate adequate controls and respond to regulatory requests in a timely manner. Protegent Surveillance helps to reduce the costs associated with responding to time-sensitive regulatory data requests.
Protegent Surveillance also uses a set of rules and algorithms that makes it possible for energy traders to detect behaviors that may be evidence of market manipulation. These algorithms have been validated through several years of research and customer implementation projects, specifically for companies that trade energy and commodities. With Protegent Surveillance, energy companies can review trading activity, maintain a proactive posture with regulators, and gain in-depth analysis without having to invest in additional staff or customized, one-off systems and tools.
Sean O'Dowd, senior analyst, capital markets at IDC Financial Insights, said, "One of the critical areas companies need to focus on is improved supervisory capabilities. Energy trading desks and companies all need to better manage compliance and detecting activity that disrupts success. These companies need to track abnormal business activity, especially that of employees. Many of the biggest operational risk issues, such as late trading, market timing, price manipulation and other techniques, can be highlighted with the proper surveillance and detection tools. Using the proper tools will help institutions be more proactive in anticipating events that can lead to operational risks and lost business value."
Steve Sabin, chief operating officer of SunGard’s Protegent business unit, said, “Protegent Surveillance is designed for firms that do not know where to begin or how to start looking for trading activity that may indicate manipulative behavior. This solution provides intelligence and best practices to address those issues, and helps provide compliance personnel with greater regulatory transparency so that they can focus on meaningful information without having to sift through noise. Protegent Surveillance helps customers demonstrate a proactive culture of compliance by including a trade surveillance system with alerting mechanisms as part of their overall compliance program.”
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SunGard's Protegent solutions for compliance, suitability and new account opening help retail and institutional investment firms oversee business processes relating to client acquisition and suitability, including Know Your Customer and OFAC list checking, as well as employees' personal trading and code of ethics, while helping reduce expenses and address regulatory requirements. Protegent supports supervision and surveillance practice, helps streamline the compliance life cycle, proactively monitors trades and provides comprehensive auditing and reporting for financial institutions and companies that trade in energy and commodities markets.
