LTM’s Consulting Delivered an Architecture Blueprint for a Global Bank to Transform Custody Operations at Scale

About the Client

A leading global financial institution operating in over 60 markets and six continents. It offers a suite of financial services, including retail banking, corporate banking, investment services, and global custody and clearing solutions.

Challenges

The client faced significant challenges across its custody operations spanning multiple geographies. Some of the key challenges included:

• The client lacked actionable insights, real-time updates and end-to-end transaction supporting for strategic decision-making due to fragmented platforms with limited transparency across the custody settlement lifecycle.
• Trade workflows depended upon error-prone, manual updates and maintenance to a considerable extent. This was inefficient due to dependencies on authorized personnel for workflow updates.
• Redundant efforts across multiple platforms for individual markets was inefficient when the client needed to rollout a new feature or transform workflows.
• The use of multiple instances of custody platforms for different markets resulted in varying custody client experiences and increased rework when building common features.
• A large operations team that supported multiple geographies was needed to maintain the high levels of manual trade instruction repairs .
• Operational challenges hindered their ability to deliver centralized and standardized operations and meet regulatory demands.

LTM’s Solution

LTM provided consulting services in designing a comprehensive architecture and transformation roadmap. Key aspects of the solution included the following:

• Cloud-native Architecture: Engaged our business and technology consulting team to provide deep custody domain expertise along with industry experience in helping clients transform from legacy to cloud-native architecture.
• Domain-driven Design Principles: Executed  the consulting assignment over five months to deliver a comprehensive architecture blueprint using domain-driven design principles that will help the bank’s business and IT stakeholders to align on future state platforms.
• Global Custody-Direct Custody and Clearing: Conducted in-person brainstorming sessions with the product team and proposed a single transaction model for GC-DCC (Global Custody-Direct Custody and Clearing) transactions and new cash management processes working with the treasury team.
• API and Real-time events: Designed a next-generation client communication journey with API and real-time events. Redesigned the exception management flow to increase straight-through processing.
• Future State Architecture: Provided a product roadmap and future state architecture, including microservices catalog, business events, datasets, and non-functional requirements for a couple of complex markets.

Tech Stack

Java, Springboot, Solace, Postgres, Rule Engine, Jenkins, Grafana

Business Benefits

LTM’s consultation enabled the client to drive measurable improvements in custody operations and customer experience, including the following outcomes:

• Developed an architecture blueprint that helped the bank reduce its operations queues by 50% by leveraging straight through processing.
• Remove duplicate IT systems across markets, potentially reducing infrastructure costs by 40%
• Provided best practices and recommendations on building cloud-native patterns
• Modelled new customer journeys for a rich client experience
• Improved client competitiveness in the custody processing market
• Helped the bank move in an incremental manner from the current state to the target state

Conclusion

LTM delivered an architecture-led transformation accelerator blueprint that aligned business intent, design, and execution to modernize the client’s custody operations. This approach enabled measurable gains in efficiency and cost while establishing a future-ready platform built for speed, resilience, and continuous change. By streamlining automation and strengthening data capabilities, the transformation supported scalable, consistent global performance so the bank has a competitive position in a rapidly evolving financial landscape. It also laid a foundation for the bank to outcreate the next phase of global custody innovation.

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