Capco Expands Cap Markets Group to Meet Trading Demand

Industry Experts Joe Anastasio and Michael Haworth to Co-Lead Group

Capco , a global provider of consulting and managed services to the financial services industry, announced the expansion of its North American Capital Markets Group. The expansion is in response to significant service demand from investment banks, broker-dealers, exchanges, and clearing firms as they seek to reduce costs, shift to fee-based revenue models, mitigate trading risks, and achieve long-term, sustainable growth.

Further, competition is increasing between established and emerging trading venues as they vie for market share. Less than three years ago, only 25% of daily trade volume was handled by electronic trading platforms. This is expected to rise to over 60% by 2011. As trading volume and velocity increases, Capco is also seeing increased demand for its advanced data management solutions.

“In today’s post-subprime crisis era, trading firms are re-evaluating their business strategies, cost structures and internal controls, and looking for more balanced business models,” said Capco Partner Joe Anastasio, in the company release. “During the boom market days, profits and gains were achievable based on huge risk bets that camouflaged inefficiencies in a firm’s infrastructure and cost models. Now, with more pressure on trading margins, we’re seeing a surge in demand to help companies identify new ways to cut costs, generate fee-based revenues and drive long-term, sustainable growth. As the leader in the financial services consulting space, Capco is uniquely qualified to help.”

The Capital Markets Group is part of Capco’s recently announced North America growth strategy to serve the needs of a broader range of clients. The Group’s focus covers front, middle and back office activities across the complex trading environment which includes derivatives, fixed income, currencies, commodities, equities, futures, structured products, and credit default swap products. The Group also provides clients with consulting services and solutions in: Post-Merger Integration; Target Operating Model Design and Implementation; Technology Rationalization/Replatforming; and Trading Process/Controls Reviews.

“After the Stanford and Madoff scandals, process integrity has become Wall Street’s new watch word,” said Capco Partner Michael Haworth, in the release. “Increased regulatory scrutiny is transforming the financial markets and having a profound impact on firms’ internal controls. Our clients want to achieve full transparency in their businesses and, therefore, need to address technology integration issues to ensure that their operational controls are robust. Additionally, they need to optimize their data management and governance to provide immediate access to data that meets required regulatory and compliance demands. This is Capco’s strong suit.”

With offices across North America, the Capital Markets Group leverages the skills of Capco’s integrated, full-service team. Capco attracts the industry’s top professionals who have an average of 16 years of first-hand industry and consulting experience in the capital markets.

Capco Partners Joe Anastasio and Michael Haworth -- financial industry experts who have served the world’s leading trading houses and exchanges – are co-leading the North American Capital Markets Group.