TRANSFORMATION
2019 was a year of progress for OCC’s Renaissance Initiative: our multi-year technology modernization project designed to enhance our resiliency. We selected Cinnober as the developer of our new Clearing platform and began our work to build the new Clearing platform. When completed, Renaissance will deliver increased business agility, more efficient and effective operations, and improved technology resiliency. All of this will help us better serve the users of our markets.
There also will be multiple benefits for market users: intuitive clearing member interfaces, self-service reporting, strengthened analytics with enhanced access to data, customized solutions, an ongoing commitment to data and cybersecurity protection, and increased confidence in OCC’s ability to deliver in times of market stress.
Our colleagues will benefit from the opportunity for enhanced performance via simpler processes and more intuitive tools to do their jobs. An increased focus on business process reengineering will allow them to engage in even more challenging work that will shape our industry. It also will allow them to have defined roles and competencies that will align the interests of OCC with available skills and opportunities.
By the end of 2019, we completed eight Clearing and Transaction Solutions sprints, launched our Data platform along with the loading of historical, market, and operational data, determined the future state and integrated architecture for the Risk and all other platforms, and developed an infrastructure to support cloud hosting, subject to regulatory review.
Cloud solutions, if approved, will enhance our resiliency in several ways, including improved redundancy via multiple data centers operating across diverse U.S. geographic regions and the ability to quickly model and create or decommission development and test environments for back-testing, stress-testing, and general software development needs.
To continue to support this transformation, OCC has already hired or internally onboarded over 100 experts specializing in high-performance Cloud computing, quant model integration, risk analytics, and next-generation risk technology.
The Renaissance Initiative also gives us the opportunity to think about how we operate. Our Business Process Reengineering team is identifying ways to redesign existing processes and provide input to system requirements. As OCC has traditionally focused on documenting and incrementally improving existing processes, this team is helping us determine the best ways possible to maximize our efficiency and effectiveness to better serve our customers.
In 2019, we formalized four business outcomes from OCC’s Renaissance-led transformation:
Sustaining our legal framework. Integral to being a SIFMU is safeguarding the integrity of cleared markets through expected safe and sound practices.
Reducing cost to run and maintain. Lowering the overall cost of clearance and settlement will be delivered through economies of skill and scale.
Producing capital efficiency. Flexibility, agility, and transformational business capabilities are three key attributes that will enable us to grow and support our customers; providing an environment where authorized business users can explore and analyze data with minimal information technology support.
Bringing new products to market quickly. Market users demand a sustainable product development process that expedites OCC’s ability to help drive industry innovation.
Throughout the financial sector and at OCC, information and cybersecurity remains a significant concern given the increasing sophistication and determination of cyber adversaries. OCC has strengthened its information security controls to identify, protect, and respond to asymmetric cyberattacks. As we transform our information technology operating environment through Renaissance, we are designing and implementing cybersecurity capabilities and processes to support the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical OCC business processes and information.
OCC also supports the needs of industry renewal and expansion. In 2019, we supported the launch of 57 new products to help grow the equity derivatives and securities lending markets, and prepared for the launch of clearing services for a new futures market, the Small Exchange.