Founded in 2000, Matrix Applications is a New York-based fintech company offering a suite of collateral management, margining, and clearing systems for institutional fixed income trading and equities securities lending. The organization consists of a team of capital markets and systems professionals delivering various financial technology solutions to institutional firms for more than two decades. Led by its Managing Director of Business Development, Stephen Mellert, Matrix Applications works hands-on with its clients to identify the optimal mix of services that fit their needs, from post-trade processing systems to back-office operations assistance. With its in-house and offshore developers, the fintech company provides its clients with the right solutions at the right price. Thanks to its team of industry veterans and financial professionals, Matrix Applications leverages its extensive technical experience, a deep network across the finance industry, and a team of ops, regulatory, and legal experts to deliver personalized managed services for its clients.
Revolutionizing the Industry
Since its inception, Matrix has successfully developed three revolutionizing systems for tackling some of the most complex issues in the post-trade processing arena.
- The first system is Elevate, formerly known as “QTIX,” provides comprehensive trade processing support for front, middle, and back-office transactions. Elevate’s modular nature offers unique plug-and-play flexibility to integrate with pre-trade venues and downstream industry utilities.
- The second is Margin Calculator, which was developed to offer an simple solution to the complex problem of margining forward-settling TBA transactions for compliance with FINRA Rule 4210 by calculating client exposure due to the market value fluctuations of unsettled positions and margin collateral posted to minimize such exposures.
- Lastly, Trade Blazer, an enterprise-grade system, integrates trading, accounting, credit, risk management, settlement, and clearance functions to help with comprehensive trade processing support for some of the world’s largest institutions.
This suite of systems can be coupled with an outsourced back-office service for the organization’s institutional clients. Matrix has seen considerable growth in its Managed Services group in recent years, as many new clients recognize the benefits of outsourcing to a knowledgeable and experienced team rather than trying to hire their own staff.
“Among all the post-trade fixed income technology providers, only Matrix and one other firm offer such a service. We created Matrix and instilled in the culture a client-focused ethic. We pride ourselves on our levels of service to our customers. We view our clients as partners because their success is our success.” – Stephen Mellert
The Steadfast Leader
As a customer advocate, Stephen Mellert delivers much-needed integrity, insight, and impact to every client relationship. Whether working one-on-one with a small financial firm or developing a large-scale solution for an enterprise client, Stephen focuses on developing innovative and customized solutions to meet the client’s distinctive requirements.
In 2000, Stephen was a co-founder of South Street Securities, a New York-based FINRA regulated broker/dealer and its affiliate, Matrix Applications.
A graduate of Georgetown University, Stephen joined Citibank’s Global Custody Division in 1989 and served the organization for two years. Then he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Fund Transfer and Electronic Securities Division. Later in 1993, he re-joined Citibank, in the Reserve Management Division, before moving to the Treasury Finance Desk to trade U.S., Canadian, and high-yield repo.
Later in 1999, armed with his experience on the Treasury and Repo Desk, Stephen left Citibank to launch Matrix Applications. Initially, the organization was established in 2000 to serve its affiliated companies; however, after a few years of existence, two of the large banks partnered with the firm to improve their fixed income processing and one elected for Matrix’s Managed Services for back-office.
The Flagbearer of Cutting Edge Technologies
As a fintech firm, Matrix Applications has always been at the forefront of various cutting-edge technologies. The organization was an early adopter of virtualized desktops, virtual telephone systems and data center replication. At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, the transition to work-from-home was a near seamless event. The firm’s commitment to fostering solid and long-term relationships with its clients and partners proved to be very important during the pandemic and financial crises.
Over the last few years, the entire team of Matrix Applications has committed to moving to state-of-art technology for its DevOps and SecOps. For example, the shift to container architecture has massively enhanced the ability to control and automate “the factory process” of creating and shipping software code. Additionally, security is woven into everything that the Matrix team currently does.
Picture of the Future
Matrix aims to minimize the associated pain points of high costs and high-touch trade life cycle management by providing seamless post-trade straight-through processing. To do that, Matrix is focused on ensuring all its systems and services are modernized and exceeding its clients’ expectations by staying current with technology, capital markets, and regulatory trends.
Stephen says, “Our evolution has always been client-focused and client-driven, entering new markets and deploying new technologies to meet the needs of our customers. We aspire to bring our solutions to the next level by growing as a firm alongside our existing and new clients. As their business grows, so do we. Ensuring steady growth in today’s environment is no easy task, but our firm is committed to fostering meaningful relationships by educating the next generation of fintech professionals and building our team.“
