Deutsche Bank Case Study
Enabling Scale and Performance
- Estafet Team
The Story
Estafet provided architectural support to Deutsche Bank for the eSpear project, which delivered equities and payment back-office settlements. The challenge was to re-engineer the platform so that it could scale to 10 million trades per day. Following a successful proof of concept, Estafet re-engineered the platform for stability, efficiency and scalability. We also implemented Continuous Integration (CI) processes to catch errors early, managed the data lifecycle for 60TB of data, as well as developing a new solution for real-time global settlement tracking. Leveraging both open source and specialist caching technologies, these solutions increased processing efficiency and supported the bank’s growth and operational resilience across key trading and settlement functions.
Challenges
- COULD NOT SCALE TO ANTICIPATED TRADE VOLUMES
- DATA MANAGEMENT AND EFFICIENCY
- ERROR DETECTION AND OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE
Analysing global settlements in real-time
The re-engineering of Deutsche Bank’s NexClear platform was a transformative project focused on enhancing real-time settlement visibility and reporting. Estafet began by identifying key challenges, such as the need to capture and analyse global settlements in real-time to support exception trade reporting. Estafet therefore developed a robust architecture that integrated advanced technologies, including a huge, distributed in-memory data caching layer, which enabled fast data retrieval and processing.
The new system enabled straight-through processing (STP), providing immediate feedback on payments and helping Deutsche Bank reduce manual interventions. Estafet also developed a user-friendly interface that offered real-time insights into trade settlements, so that Deutsche Bank could track exceptions and make informed decisions more quickly. This not only improved operational efficiency but also provided Deutsche Bank with a scalable, resilient platform to support growing transaction volumes and evolving regulatory requirements.
The Solution
Estafet’s solution for Deutsche Bank centred on re-engineering the eSpear platform to support increased trading volumes, transforming it from a 1-million to a 10-million-trade-per-day capacity. Estafet implemented a scalable, high-performance architecture, with a proof-of-concept successfully validating the platform’s capabilities. Additionally, Estafet introduced Continuous Integration (CI) for enhanced error detection, allowing Deutsche Bank to identify and resolve issues faster across its systems. For data management, Estafet led the Data Lifecycle Management (DLM) project to efficiently segment and migrate 60TB of data, ultimately guaranteeing operational resilience, data processing, and system responsiveness across several core operations at Deutsche Bank.
Deliverables
- SCALABLE, HIGH-CAPACITY TRADING INFRASTRUCTURE
- AUTOMATED BUILD AND TESTING
- IN-MEMORY SETTLEMENT TRACKING
The Success
Deutsche Bank achieved significant success through Estafet’s tailored solutions. The re-engineered eSpear platform scaled to manage nearly 10 million trades daily, meeting market demands and bolstering reliability. Continuous Integration (CI) enabled automated testing and rapid error detection, reducing downtime and accelerating issue resolution. Estafet’s Data Lifecycle Management (DLM) solution optimised handling of 60TB of data, improving processing times and operational efficiency. Additionally, the development of NexClear (formerly GSLR) provided Deutsche Bank with real-time visibility into global settlements, streamlining trade exception reporting. These advancements collectively enhanced Deutsche Bank’s trading capabilities, operational resilience, and scalability across core financial functions.
Outcomes
- INCREASED SCALABILITY AND TRADING CAPACITY
- IMPROVED OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY
- ENHANCED REAL-TIME REPORTING AND DECISION-MAKING
