The Lehman Brothers fixed-income prime brokerage website forms part of the bank’s Strategic Client Services (SCS) programme. The site connects to clients’ middle-office and back-office functions.
Clients are not obliged to use every part of the site, because it is available on a modular basis. That means that if clients already have their own systems linking their front and back offices, they can selectively use the parts of Lehman Brothers’ online prime brokerage product to fill in the gaps. This approach makes the site useful for a whole range of clients with different needs.
The site provides settlement, reconciliation, and clearance of all fixed income-related products. Part of the package is SmartTicket, a comprehensive, single-site, multi-product post-execution platform that clients can use to process all their trades. SmartTicket supports all cash and OTC derivatives products with all counterparties. On the risk analysis side, clients get daily marked-to-market valuations on all OTC derivatives. Lehman is highly unusual in providing this to clients for trades other than its own.
Another strong selling point is its online collateral management. In response to growing client concerns about having sufficient ISDA collateral in volatile markets, Lehman has introduced margin analysis that can alert clients when they need to post or call for collateral.