An end of year note from CloudMargin’s CEO, Steven Husk.
A Pivotal Year
When we look back in years to come we will see that 2016 was a pivotal year, and as we approach its end, we’ll hear many political and economic commentators deliberating the year’s big themes of Brexit, QE, low interest rates, potential changes in several European governments and of course the election of Donald Trump. Very few, however, will mention CloudMargin, but change there was aplenty: Our client base has grown fivefold, the number of employees has doubled, we have opened sales offices in New York and Singapore and we have signed landmark, global deals with the CME Group and UBS. We upgraded from private cloud to AWS, we started building a 24-hour support team based in Romania and we have just begun laying the groundwork for the next major release of our user experience. It’s been quite a year.
The numbers, however, only tell part of the story. There are two other factors in 2016 that are arguably more interesting. The first is the growing acceptance of cloud technology in banking. What was a ‘strong trend’ 12 months ago is a tidal wave today. Increasingly, we are approached by companies who are only looking at cloud based solutions. Not only that, we rarely need to even discuss the material benefits that the cloud brings to our community of users as these are now so well understood.
Secondly, the CloudMargin platform itself is becoming recognised as an industry standard among a diverse set of players. Collateral is moving from the back-office of many institutions to being at the heart of a continuum that stretches from pre-trade analytics where the total cost of a trade can be analysed through to managing the workflow and onto the reporting of the trade via smart contracts. Since the beginning of the year we have added a raft of new features including collateral optimisation, enhanced dispute tracking, and direct clearing house connectivity which has empowered collateral management teams within a variety of institutions to extend even greater contributions to the success of their companies. We are proud of the dynamic, inter-connected CloudMargin community that has followed and to be an agile, fast moving company that is well on its way to becoming the vanguard of this exciting space.
Looking ahead
2017 will start with a symbolic change as CloudMargin embarks on its next era. On Monday, the 2nd of January, we will move our Headquarters to new offices in the Borough district of London. As we physically move on from the austere “City” spaces favoured by enterprise software vendors to a far more modern, high tech space , that same forward-thinking ethos will be carried into our platform, service and everything we create in the year ahead. (Look out for an invite to the ‘house warming’!)
I can’t finish my look forwards without mentioning the impact of the new regulation that is imminent. We all know that the “Uncleared” Margin Rules will come into force in March followed by more stringent regulation later in the year. Many industry players are anxious about preparations and the business impact. Our business model has been intentionally designed to meet the challenges that our community faces head on, in a cost effective way, and we aim to partner with each and every one in our community to ensure compliance to this fast changing landscape with ease. Just as we have since we started, CloudMargin will continue to keep our community regulation-ready with real-time upgrades that reflect the latest demands.
Finally may I take this opportunity to wish you and your families all the best as we enter the festive season and a Prosperous CloudMargin New Year!
Yours sincerely,
Steven Husk
CEO of CloudMargin