Goldman Sachs & Co has achieved a greater than 99% same day affirmation rate and a significant improvement in settlement rates for transactions leveraging the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's CTM’s Match to Instruct (M2i) workflow in Q4 2023.

In addition, Goldman Sachs was able to achieve a 38% reduction in same-day affirmation exceptions and a 64% reduction in US settlement fails by value, when matching and affirming trades with investment manager counterparties who also use CTM’s M2i.

CTM’s M2i workflow aims to significantly increase same day affirmation (SDA) rates on DTC-eligible securities when a trade match occurs between an investment manager and executing broker. DTCC says that clients utilising CTM’s M2i workflow benefit from central matching and auto-affirmation capabilities that are typically more efficient than local matching and affirmation by custodians.

Today, most CTM investment managers leveraging M2i to match and affirm their US trades achieve a near 100% affirmation rate by 9:00pm ET on trade date, achieving the level of straight through processing necessary to meet their counterparties’ T+1 SDA requirements and cut-off times.

As the financial services industry prepares for the upcoming US move to T+1 settlement on 28 May, 2024, firms are looking closely at their post-trade processes to increase automation and to remove inefficiency. Goldman Sachs & Co, a self-clearing broker dealer, implemented CTM’s M2i workflow in Q4 2022 as part of their broader strategy to improve settlement efficiency and create a streamlined post trade experience for clients. They performed an impact analysis across the investment managers leveraging the M2i workflow and observed an increase in same-day affirmations.

CTM, part of DTCC’s ITP suite of products, is a central matching service for cross-border and domestic transactions across multiple asset classes that has become a global best practice.