SAS invests in Capital Markets US Practice

Business Intelligence BI Software News : SAS invests in Capital Markets US Practice

SAS, the leader in business intelligence and predictive analytics, continues its commitment to the financial services industry by forming the SAS Capital Markets US Practice. This new division will develop strategies to leverage existing revenue, expand current client relationships and cultivate new revenue streams in the hedge fund, risk and asset management industry.

The practice will apply its deep domain expertise to help institutions leverage SAS capabilities and best practices to address specific business challenges and opportunities in capital markets. Risk management based on strong analytics will be a key focus for the practice, targeting counterparty credit risk, settlement risk, risk-adjusted capital management and portfolio stress testing and analytics. In addition, SAS intends to launch a broker churn solution for asset management in the fourth quarter of 2008. SAS realizes that enterprise risk and performance management solutions with embedded analytics will be critical components for long-term success within capital markets.

“The capital markets business continues to thrive and become more sophisticated across major revenue lines while becoming more complicated,” said TowerGroup analyst Stephen Bruel. “Global firms will be looking for partners who can offer valuable domain expertise and technology solutions to help optimize their trading strategies, efficiently process transactions, effectively manage risk, and maximize their client relationships."

Paul Devlin has been named Director of the SAS Capital Markets US Practice. Devlin has successfully built sales and consultancy teams for SAS across all its industries and has 20 years experience in the UK and US financial services industries.

“This practice formation reflects the success SAS has seen within the capital markets industry and how SAS strives to address the specific business needs of its customers,” said Devlin. “In the past year, the capital markets industry has realized the importance of implementing a more robust risk discipline across the enterprise to minimize exposure and maximize capital efficiencies. In addition, upcoming legislation will mandate transparency in the capital markets space, which as we know, has traditionally been difficult to achieve in this industry.”

“SAS is uniquely positioned, through its combination of existing clients, industry expertise and integrated risk platform, to help its clients implement enterprise risk and performance management practices that drives significant cost, profit and capital efficiencies,” said Devlin. “It will build the foundation for achieving transparency and meeting regulatory requirements both now and in the future."

Last month, SAS was positioned in the Leaders quadrant by Gartner Inc. in its Magic Quadrant for Operational Risk Management Software for Financial Services 1 , 2008 report. Chartis Research recently ranked SAS as the leader for the fourth consecutive year in its Operational Risk Management Systems 2008 report and for the second year as the leader for retail banking in its Credit Risk Management Systems 2008 report.

Current SAS customers in capital markets include The Dreyfus Corp., Millennium Bank and RBC Dominion Securities.

About the Magic Quadrant
The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted June 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

1. Gartner Research. Magic Quadrant for Operational Risk Management Software for Financial Services, Douglas McKibben, David Furlonger, June 6, 2008.

About SAS
SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytical software and services. Customers at more than 44,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight from data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products and processes. Only SAS offers leading data integration, storage, analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .

Source: Business Intelligence BI SAS Software information at sas.com