Financial markets have suffered a tremendous change in the last decade. The continuous emergence of new complex financial products, the growth in business activity and the increased regulatory scrutiny, have forced financial institutions to face new challenges. As a result there is an enormous volume increase in complex trades with a corresponding increase in data volume, its associated processes and in the number of people involved.

So, in order to profit and enlarge business opportunities, financial institutions are forced to re-think their operational structure. And, to prevent financial system failures, regulators are imposing new conditions to financial institutions producing challenges in capital reservation, operational costs and improvements in monitoring and reporting of business activities.

This new environment requires financial institutions to support new complex computational processes, integrate and analyse larger amounts of data, without any loss in the level of service, while demanding an efficient cost model, optimal leverage of all IT-investments and the capacity to react instantaneously to market changes.

Santander runs Monte Carlo simulations to add a statistical valuation and Value at Risk to their portfolios. Grid Systems designed a solution that connected the bank's risk application to the corporate Grid platform. The pilot was up and running in two days, and it has been in production for the last year.

The use of Grid technology brought about a considerable reduction in computational time, removed dead time between database requests, and created a flexible and scalable solution with an efficient cost model for future growth and improvement.

In addition to the functionalities of Grid Systems technology, the bank found the ease of implementation and administration to be an important added asset.