Banking and insurance software solutions specialist Vermeg has opened its first office in Brazil, with Santander Securities Services Brazil (S3 Brazil) onboarded as the first local user of its securities and custody solution, Megara.
S3 Brazil began to utilise Megara in July as part of an expansion to Santander’s existing deal with Vermeg to access the post-trade processing software in several other Latin America (LATAM) territories, including Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.
Santander and Vermeg started discussing a project aiming to roll out Megara in the other LATAM markets in 2015. According to Vermeg, all these territories are live with Megara, and are also exploring extending the collaboration to cover other products.
Vermeg’s mandate with Santander began in 1999 on a project to replace the banking group’s existing custody system in Spain. Santander Spain gradually acquired all the modules of Megara, Vermeg’s securities and custody suite.
The extension of the mandate makes S3 Brazil the first client to be serviced out of Vermeg’s new office in Sao Paulo.
A Vermeg spokesperson said the firm is currently in "advanced discussions with several other major market actors” in order to offer them Megara and other Vermeg products.
“Vermeg is investing heavily in Brazil in research and development and people in order to scale up its operations in Brazil and secure other clients, not only in the banking industry but also in insurance,” the spokesperson added.
According to Vermeg, its flagship digital transformation offering, Palmyra, will be a key driver of its growth in Brazil.
The new office is led by general manager Wagner Antunes, who joined Vermeg in January and brings experience from holding director-level positions at Ebix, IBM and DXC Technology.
In his new role, Wagner will be responsible for building the team and client base for Vermeg in the region.
Wagner commented: “I am delighted that we have been chosen by Santander to provide post-trade processing solutions in Brazil, and to build on our existing relationship with this leading global bank.”
“This is a landmark client for our new Brazil office and is an important step in realising our ambition to grow the Vermeg presence across Latin America.”
Incorporating Colline
Vermeg confirmed that since the integration of Lombard Risk began in February 2018, it has started working on the identified synergies in terms of products and sales.
Specifically, a spokesperson for Vermeg highlighted the integration of Megara’s message broker module into Colline to enable the latter to offer a direct connection to the clearing houses (CCPs), thereby achieving automated and seamless integration with those CCPs.
The spokesperson also said that Palmyra could be used to create new ‘digital journeys’ in the form of new components that can be offered to Vermeg and Lombard Risks’ clients to help them accelerate their digital transformation.
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