The Future of Murex from a Consultant's Perspective

Murex has long been a cornerstone in the world of Capital Markets technology—providing robust solutions for trading, risk management, and regulatory compliance.

I myself have being on the Murex consulting journey for over a decade now!

And within this period of extensive learning curve— I have being fortunate to be a part of the greenfield implementations, version upgrades, in-house projects, optimization projects, support projects, and so on.

As the times have being changing with the turbulent markets and frequent regulations— further sharply catalyzed by the AI advancements—

it is time to reflect what all exciting is happening in the fintech space—especially in Murex!

And things one can expect to see (a wishlist sort of) from the future Murex versions.

The article is from the POV of a techno-functional consultant.

1. Cloud Adoption and Software-as-a-Service Model

One of the biggest shifts in the financial technology space (which is already happening in higher versions of Murex implementations) is the move towards cloud computing.

Murex is increasingly offering cloud-based deployments, allowing firms to benefit from scalability, cost efficiency, and enhanced security.

With Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models, clients can now access Murex’s powerful functionalities without heavy on-premise infrastructure investments.

2. AI & ML Integration at Murex's Architecture vs Usage Level

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are revolutionizing how financial institutions operate.

While Murex might be incorporating AI-driven analytics to enhance risk management and improve trading outlooks at the architecture level itself—

the way this plays out at the end-user level is yet to be seen!

At the architecture level, for example—Predictive analytics and intelligent automation could be becoming integral to decision-making processes in Murex implementations.

Innovations in Value-at-Risk (VaR) calculations, stress testing, and scenario analysis will help firms meet evolving Basel and IFRS regulations.

6. Expansion into New Asset Classes

As financial markets evolve, new asset classes such as cryptocurrencies and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investments are gaining traction.

Murex is expanding its product capabilities to support these emerging asset classes, allowing firms to diversify their portfolios while maintaining compliance and risk oversight.

7. Real-Time Data Processing and Analytics

The demand for real-time decision-making is pushing Murex to enhance its data processing capabilities.

Real-time risk assessment, pricing analytics, and instant trade execution are becoming essential features—ensuring traders and risk managers have insights up to-a-second!

Regulatory initiatives such as T+2 to T+1 settlement change is pushing boundaries for manual SOPs and stakeholders to be ready.

Investors face challenges with Friday trades for example— requiring post-trade processing on Saturday evening EST.

More so, moving to T+0 in regions as the time comes will require an even faster turnaround time—almost instantaneously!

These real-time capabilities will help address reduced-time available for matching trades and mitigate difficulties in cross-market settlements.

These are the exciting stuffs already happening—

and it makes me thrilled what could play out in near future in the new versions.

What I anticipate to see— A Wishlist sort of!

1. Focus on API for Third Party Integration

Financial ecosystems require seamless integration between multiple platforms.

Every firm wants to bring as much piece of the trade lifecycle as possible under their umbrella.

For example—whether its a a payments & cashflow reconciliation tool that a bank wants to develop, a global static reconciliation platform, or an automation tool for file comparison—

every miniscule component developed in-house saves significant purchasing cost first time and recurring licensing costs down the line!

Therefore, in an ecosystem where a lot of customization at every institution level will thrive—it is increasingly becoming important to have package-ready/ play & drop APIs being made available from Murex.

This will allow firms to connect Murex with third-party applications—whether these are custom analytics engines or enterprise systems—thus enabling better data flow and operational efficiency.

AI usage is going to further fast-track such customized ecosystems.

2. Advancements in Reporting module

Regulatory notifications are an evergreen line of work that Murex has to cater to for its clients!

In the fast changing geopolitical landscape—the regulatory onboardings are more frequent than ever.

Upcoming reforms such as BASEL III Endgame adjustments, settlement cycle change from T+2 to T+1, and so on, are a few of the examples.

The regulatory framework is standard in nature—which means once the specifications are out in the market 6 months in advance, or 2 years in advance—the implementation is bound to be consistent across all clients.

Which means if a Regulatory Reporting Framework is already integrated within Murex, it can be used by all clients, rather than each client starting from scratch to build or enhance their reports.

Additionally, reports developed by clients tend to become cluttered over time, as new regulatory requirements are added. This often leads to messy logic, with SQL reports overwhelmed by numerous CASE statements or Java code snippets becoming overloaded with thousands of lines of code.

But how does this Regulatory Reporting framework chipped in Murex could look like?—

It's hard to tell because of the proprietary nature of the platform.

But I can anticipate 2 possibilities could shape up—

• Along the lines of the Datamart module, we may have a dedicated screen that bundles up all the regulatory mappings! Let's say, when there is an upcoming regulatory notification, this screen in its new patch can include the base structure being ready in terms of the column logic and the tables to be referred.

• Workflow model as an alternative to the reporting universe—where the workflow tasks can process the regulator info. The advantage this one has over the traditional Datamart model is that the the resulting report will be generated in real-time, perfectly aligning with the daily submission frequency required by regulators.

2. Mx Doc enrichment

This one is my personal favorite change that I would love to see in future—

In today's times with AI advancements—enhanced visualization tools and intuitive dashboards are becoming the norm—making it easier for users to derive insights efficiently.

The Mx Doc—in this context—I find is still quite index based—And is yet to get its long due revamp!

In order to give it a modernistic touch with the changing times—I could think of something along the lines of Process Visualization!

For example, there is a website called https://roadmap.sh/

Its an interactive URL where one can customize project & documentation related needs in a dynamic and user-friendly manner.

This intuitive representation could look like below—where you click on any subject cell, and it gives you sub-details of each topic.

Another visualization technique I can think of is leveraging the Circular Org charts model, where categories and their sub-info can be segregated & clickable in color-coded strips!—

Or something like the following dashboard, where I can glance up the entire Murex documentation, and as I hover the cursor over a dot, it zooms and gives me the links to follow next!

3. Performance Analytics within the Platform Itself—

Every Murex project in any client at any location uses a combination of checks to retrieve performance numbers and stats.

While some of these could be very client specific— a lot of these are pretty universal!

These checks could be catering to greenfield projects, BAU support, optimization, upgrade projects, and so on.

This is a large unorganized market of adhoc checks used by every developer and business analyst day-in day-out.

These echecks could be packaged as a separate module all together— where each category could bundle up a list of checks—

These could be audit checks, system intensive checks, technical checks, module specific checks, and so on.

AI can further fast-track assimilating and giving a name/ categorization to this cluttered analytics/ echecks market.

I am confident that given the AI advancements, one day it can be taken care of in some fashion by the platform itself!

Some of these analytics could be as follows—

Let' call it the Analytics screen (a future name for example)—— where we can have following sub analytics categories— and then based on the uploaded source (trade data, log file, any other input file, xmls, and so on), these analytics could return stats:

This screen can further be scaled up to categories like EOD monitoring, Product analytics, and so on.

?Value Proposition this tool could bring (if materialized): Savings in time!

• The tool will be helpful during version upgrades when hundreds of trades are being booked and the possibility of erroneous trades is high.
• Will save time during greenfield implementations where a new product onboarding is common, and as a result multitude of trades being booked could go wrong.
• Also come in handy for BAU routine checks to save crucial time during the L1 Support/ Batch monitoring.

Conclusion

As a Murex consultant, staying informed about these trends is crucial.

By embracing these innovations— Murex is helping financial institutions stay ahead of the curve, ensuring resilience and efficiency in an ever-changing market landscape.

As fintech evolves— we can expect powerful advancements in third-party integrations, regulatory reporting, and data visualization.

Exciting times lie ahead!

Do you notice any ongoing advancements in the platform that I missed out? And are there any developments you would expect to see in future? Do comment!

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