Rockall Technologies announced today that the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh has implemented Rockall's Systematic Tracking of Collateral (STOC) solution.
FHLBank Pittsburgh is one of six Federal Home Loan Bank System institutions that have chosen STOC for management of the liquid assets and mortgage collateral pledged to secure low-cost loans to member banks.
Robert Kovach, director of collateral services at FHLBank Pittsburgh, noted "We needed a platform that would minimize both operational risk and credit risk. We also wanted to streamline and automate our approach to generating accurate and timely information for internal auditors and to satisfy bank examiners' requirements.
"Rockall gave us all that and more. They are experts in collateral management, a vital core discipline in banking. They have an impressive set of client references and a track record of successful delivery."
STOC is the only system that gives financial institutions the enterprise-wide, real-time operational capability to value, monitor and manage collateral of all types and for all lines of business. Its features include:
- automated management, tracking, and valuation of portfolios of mixed whole- loan and securities collateral
- seamless integration with other banking systems, securities custodians, and market pricing systems
- accurate, immediate evaluation of lending positions, exposures, loan-to-value, loan-to-margin, and concentration levels
- detection of policy exceptions and instantaneous generation of alerts
- eligibility analyses based on predetermined policies and valuations from multiple market sources, with application of "haircuts" as specified.
Rockall CEO Luke Nestor cited Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's May 5 address to Congress as evidence that collateral management, Rockall's focus since its founding in 1999, is regarded as essential by the country's top regulatory body.
"Chairman Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee that the Fed would be revamping its disclosure policies and providing additional information including: measures of concentrations of credit among borrowers; monthly information on collateral taken under its lending programs; breakouts by types of collateral and by ratings categories; and additional valuations of collateral.
"All this highlights the importance of collateral management as a core capability of banking, not as an adjunct or subset of loan operations or risk management.
"We are proud to be working with the Federal Home Loan Banks. They consider implementation of systematic collateral controls as central to their credit limit management and risk mitigation strategies," concluded Nestor.