Algo Collateral Newsletter

The Algo Collateral (Sentry) North American Users Group Meeting was held last month at the New York offices of Credit Suisse First Boston. Twenty-eight collateral practitioners, representing ten out of the sixteen Algo Collateral (Sentry) clients in North America, attended this meeting that discussed how Sentry Financial, a Division Of Algorithmics, was able to address client issues and concerns in the areas of Training, Support, Release Management, Quality Assurance, and Technology. Additionally, specific enhancement issues were discussed in order to ascertain what new functionality clients would like to see in Algo Collateral (Sentry).

Algorithmics would like to extend its appreciation to Dianne Schuyler from Bank One, who served as meeting moderator, and Vinnie Brown and Rob Galvan from Credit Suisse First Boston for their active involvement in making the June users group meeting a success.

A new series of training courses on Algo Collateral (Sentry) that were recently offered at our London office, will be available in New York as well. This schedule of NY classes will be published shortly on our website at http://www.algorithmics.com/services/academy/lon-schedule.shtml. Algo Collateral (Sentry) course descriptions are also available at this web site. These courses will assist both colleagues new to your collateral team, and those new to Sentry functionality in general. Courses will be offered on the following topics:

1. Static Data & Basic Workflow
2. API Configuration
3. Reconciliation
4. Installation & Upgrade
5. oSentry & External Modules

Our North American market will benefit from a new process to improve knowledge transfer. North American clients can expect timely and accurate responses to their support questions by sending an email directly to the Algo Collateral (Sentry) professional services and development teams in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey at SentryNAPF@Algorithmics.com. This service will be available to clients beginning August 1, 2002. This procedure follows one that has been in use at our London office for supporting Algo Collateral (Sentry) clients in Europe and Asia.

Additionally, improvements are being made to the web-based Algo Collateral (Sentry) Support Site to track and address all client-initiated issues (i.e. reported bugs and enhancement requests). All requests will be reviewed, prioritized, and managed within the Algo Collateral (Sentry) Support Site environment. On-line, clients will be able to communicate and promote outstanding issues to Algo Collateral (Sentry) development, and vice versa, throughout the duration of the outstanding issue. The new Support Site will contain a Search mechanism to reference development issues, an FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) section, and means to provide your own comments.

The Algo Collateral (Sentry) Support Site will also assists client software upgrades. Change history documents will be made available to determine which functional improvements have been made between their current version of Algo Collateral (Sentry) and the version to which they are upgrading.

This new Algo Collateral (Sentry) Support Site will be operational by end of Q3 2002.

Clients at the North American User group meeting cited Automation as a key concern. Clients wanted an easy and straightforward process to set up static data such as new counterparty or new collateral agreement information in Algo Collateral (Sentry). Various 'Help Wizards' are currently being planned and developed. Scott Linden from Deutsche Bank and Steve Conway from Hypovereinsbank have volunteered to test the completed Wizards and provide feedback. A prototype of one of the Wizards will be demonstrated at the next North American Users Group meeting.

Jeff Siemer from Algorithmics presented a demonstration of the Cross Product Margining Prototype in Algo Collateral (Sentry). Clients noted that there are no standard processes in the marketplace, and cross-margin requirements vary between companies. Algorithmics will continue to take an active role in this area of business. If anyone is interested in becoming a 'Development Partner' with Algorithmics with respect to Cross Product Margining, please contact Kathleen Conlon, Evelyn Dewaele, or Alex Boguslavsky.

The next Algo Collateral (Sentry) North American Users Group meeting is scheduled for September 2002 (venue to be announced soon). Interested sponsors should contact Kathleen Conlon, or Alex Boguslavsky.

Information regarding the next European Users Group meeting will be forthcoming shortly and the inaugural Asian Users Group meeting is currently being planned for Q4 2002.

The fourth annual Algo Credit Conference will be held at the Ana Grand Hotel in Vienna, Austria from November 20 - 22, 2002.

The Algo Credit Conference will feature a number of relevant industry topics including keynote addresses, panel discussions and presentations. Topics such as BIS II, real-time credit limits management, mark-to-market for loans, and the benefits of enterprise credit risk will be discussed. For more information about the Algo Credit Conference, please continue to visit the web site at: http://www.algorithmics.com/aboutalgo/events/2002-credit-overview.shtml.

 Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has purchased a license for Algo Collateral (Sentry). Algo Collateral (Sentry) is now the collateral management solution of choice at the four largest financial institutions in Australia.

Richard Barton is relocating to Singapore for 18 months at the end of August to drive Algo Collateral (Sentry) sales, project implementations, client support, and strategic business development in Asia and Australia. Singapore will therefore become the third major office for Algo Collateral (Sentry)-specific operations in the world, including Mt. Laurel, NJ and London. He will also roll out all processes, procedures and training courses to our colleagues in the regional offices (Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney) for more efficient client support.

Craig Bird, who replaces Richard Barton, has joined Algorithmics as a senior member of the Algo Collateral (Sentry) London team. Craig is joining us from Chase JP Morgan with 6 years of collateral management experience, a technical background including the building of a collateral management system and project management skills.

Algorithmics will build a section of "Cool or Frequently Asked Enhancements", as per clients request.

Our first Enhancement: Algo Collateral (Sentry) now supports enhanced Lotus Notes mail support. Those clients using Algo Collateral (Sentry) Version 4 are able to export margin call notices to their mail system. For more information, please contact your local Algo Collateral (Sentry) consultant.