Aqua Global Solutions Company Overview
Aqua Global Solutions was established in September 1983. It is headquartered in London and has a regional office in Poland. Aqua Global is a leader in financial message management for the world’s top financial institutions, including retail and wholesale banks, wealth and asset management firms, and fund administration institutions.
The solution is a single, modular proposition called Aquila that provides straight-through processing of messages for payments, treasury, securities, trade finance, and statement reporting. Unlike other solutions in the market, all modules are incorporated into one integrated solution that eradicates the need for multiple applications. These modules co-exist within a single shared database and are delivered as a complete solution, allowing customers to deploy additional modules quickly and at a pace that suits their business requirements.
Aquila has off-the-shelf adapters for many leading core banking systems. It can also be integrated into other systems and external services, including in-house and proprietary ones. Aquila meets all SWIFT (FIN and ISO 20022), local clearing, and internal services such as internet and mobile banking requirements.
Aquila Product Overview
Aquila consists of the following modules:
- Message Management
- Inward Payments Processing
- Outward Payments Settlement
- SWIFT gpi and Universal Confirmations Module
- Manual Transaction Entry
- Account Reconciliations
- Treasury Message Matching
- SWIFT LAU
- ISO 20022 Modules
Aquila Message Management
Message Management (MM) is an integrated framework for controlling all electronic messaging from various services. MM integrates internal systems with third-party applications and external messaging services to simplify IT architecture. MM is a multi-entity, multi-currency solution offering 24×7 transaction processing and automation capabilities in harmony with core systems. Queue Management (QM) is the main dashboard and point of control for all incoming and outgoing messages.
With Aquila, banks can automate and control:
- Receiving inward and outward SWIFT MT/MX messages
- Managing user profiles and authorities
- Message routing to different departments
- Configuring automated processing (e.g., payments STP)
- Managing exceptions
- Providing SWIFT Standards & SWIFT gpi compliance
- Comprehensive audit information and control
- Automatic and manual message creation
- SWIFT message templates
- Duplicate message detection
- Message transformation (MT ↔ MX)
Integration Capabilities
Internal Systems: Core banking, trading, AML/KYC, e-banking
External Services: SWIFT, RTGS, local clearing, remittance networks, bespoke formats
Message Standards
All SWIFT FIN message standards within Aquila have an effective date that allows changes in message structure to be catered for without software upgrades. Annual SWIFT message standards updates are soft-coded and typically released at least three months prior to go-live. Aquila provides flexibility, audit, and control of message standards and requirements.
FIN to ISO 20022 Transition
SWIFT plans to phase out certain MT1xx, MT2xx, and MT9xx messages by November 2025 in favor of ISO 20022 equivalents. Aquila supports MX messaging adoption through native message creation or transformation between MX and MT.
Inward Payments Processing
Controls inbound STP of payments into the core banking system using existing APIs. Status codes from API programs are monitored, and alerts are generated for failed bookings. Manual repair functionality is available. Aquila can automatically apply fees based on customer profiles and processing type.
Data Definition Layer
Defines the structure of specific messages (industry-standard or customer-specific). Message standards are version-dated and stored in database tables, eliminating the need for software updates when standards change. Supports importing and processing file types like XLS, XML, CSV, enabling third-party payment submissions for automated booking.
Benefits
- Reduced manual processes, cost, and risk
- Improved accuracy
- Improved time cycles
- Enhanced audit and control
- Improved compliance, including SWIFT gpi and Universal Confirmations
Outward Payments
The Outward Payment processing can automatically produce outward settlement messages for the bank in the appropriate format. This feature generates fully formatted confirmation and payment messages for transmission to services such as SWIFT, SEPA, local clearing, or faster payments. Settlement messages can cater for Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems such as EBA or TARGET2 if required. Trade details can be augmented using Standard Settlement Instructions (SSIs) and tailored to the exact requirements of individual counterparties. Full trade cancellation processing is included.
Manual Transaction Entry
Manual Transaction Entry (MTE) provides a managed input mechanism that allows all types of non-electronic payments to be processed. MTE can still be used if the core system is offline. When the core system becomes available, all transactions will automatically be processed. Entries are keyed by staff in either Head Office or regional branches, which may optionally be routed to Head Office for checking. The appropriate settlement channel, accounting entries, exchange rates, and standard settlement instructions are applied automatically, including validation of bank codes (BIC or local clearing) and IBAN numbers. The system also has highly configurable transaction fees based on the type of transaction and customer.
Aquila Account Reconciliation
The Aquila Account Reconciliations (AR) module provides real-time reconciliation that can dramatically improve operational efficiency and reduce risk exposure. AR provides automatic reconciliation of items with information held within an institution’s internal systems, including:
- SWIFT Securities
- SWIFT Cash
- Internal system formats
- Bespoke formats
- Card formats
- Precious metals
Treasury Matching
The Aquila Treasury Message Matching (TMM) module provides real-time matching of all treasury confirmations. TMM allows institutions to define matching relationships between inbound and outbound treasury trade confirmations to automatically detect trade anomalies in a timely manner. Matching rules can be defined for messages for any service required (e.g., SWIFT). TMM enables clear investigation of matched, unmatched, and possible match relationships. It automatically highlights exceptions, ensuring timely resolution, with the ability to add notes to transactions to aid future investigations if required.
Incident Management
Aquila has built-in incident reporting that not only tracks events but also improves issue resolution. The flexible incident management process immediately captures incident details and assigns them to the appropriate people. Its reporting dashboard allows for investigation and analysis, corrective action, and incident closure with full audit.
ISO 20022 Solutions
Adapting internal systems to process ISO 20022 messages can be challenging and costly for most institutions, but Aqua Global offers solutions to simplify this process. To meet ISO 20022 requirements, Aqua Global provides either an ISO 20022 Messaging Hub or an MT-to-MX Message Transformation Tool.
Key benefits:
- No changes required to existing systems
- Easily adopted
- Minimal training required
- 40+ years of financial message processing experience
- SWIFT CBPR+ ready vendor
- Annual SWIFT Message Standards updates included in subscription
Aquila and the SWIFT Customer Security Programme (CSP)
Aqua Global provides solutions to address vulnerabilities detailed in the SWIFT Customer Security Controls Framework, improving security and reducing the risk of fraudulent activity.
Aquila SWIFT Local Authentication (LAU)
As part of the SWIFT CSP, SWIFT recommends implementing message authentication when exchanging messages between the back office and the SWIFT gateway. This is achieved using the SWIFT Local Authentication (LAU) module, where Aquila exchanges messages with a Local Authentication signature in the trailer for each SWIFT message. The LAU value depends on two 16-digit keys concatenated to provide a key for the encryption algorithm using Hash-Based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256) signatures. The symmetric key is shared by both Aquila and Alliance Access. For incoming SWIFT messages with an LAU in the header, Aquila verifies the LAU. Similarly, Aquila creates an LAU on outward messages for the SWIFT device to verify prior to submission to the SWIFT network, preventing tampering with SWIFT exchange files.
