Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank goes live with DTCC’s GC Direct

The US subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui (SuMi TRUST USA) has gone live with DTCC’s GC Direct service to fully automate communication of its settlement processes.

SuMI TRUST is the first Japanese custodian bank to go live on the ALERT GC Direct workflow to maintain and provide standard settlement instructions (SSI) data to its clients.

The GC Direct automates the exchange of SSIs between a custodian’s central repository and the ALERT host, using ISO 20022 compliant messages.

It also allows custodians to manage settlement instructions on behalf of their buy-side clients, which has resulted in a significant reduction in SSI-related fails, with some achieving fail reduction rates of over 50%.

“By introducing GC Direct, SuMi Trust USA is pleased to enhance both the information-provision and services that contribute to our clients’ investment activities and operations,” said Douglas Shivers, head of global custody administration, SuMI TRUST USA.

ALERT GC Direct has currently seven global custodians live on the service, covering 700,000 settlement instructions. Last year, DTCC signed up HSBC Securities Services, JP Morgan and Brown Brothers Harriman onto the platform.

“We’ve had much success with other global custodians in the past few years in enabling greater control in the settlement process, increasing data quality and staying aligned with best practices,” said Bill Meenaghan, executive director of DTCC ALERT.