News and information group Reuters is to launch a new Grid and Linux-enabled, enterprise-wide risk module for managing limits and credit exposures across both the banking and trading book.
Reuters Kondor Global Risk is a module within the vendor's Kondor trade and risk management suite and is billed as "an enterprise-wide credit risk and limit control application which consolidates information across all subsidiaries and distributes risk figures in real time onto every desk". The package also comes with a Basel II regulatory capital module to improve compliance in the credit risk area, for both the trading book and the banking book.
Grid technology is being deployed to power an internal risk engine for Monte-Carlo simulation based Potential Futures Exposures, in an effort to assess credit risk for instruments sensitive to market moves - such as complex derivatives and structured products - and provide better credit exposure analysis.
Reuters says it is collaborating with IBM, Intel and DataSynapse to ensure efective use of Grid technology.
Kondor Global Risk is currently undergoing performance benchmarking on IBM's Blade Center technology, equipped with Intel processors in a Red Hat Linux operating environment. Early results of the benchmarking indicate that the application can complete a full PFE analysis for an average bank in less than 5 minutes, says Reuters, bringing advanced complex analysis into the reach of most banks.
Just over half of the world's top 25 banks utilise Reuters' Kondor trade and risk management software. The company says the launch of the new module demonstrates its commitment to the risk management market, despite recording a ten per cent drop off in sales in the first quarter of 2005.