Murex is a company that provides financial software for

trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchan ...

treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in p ...

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

, and post-trade operations for

financial market A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets ...

s. Murex was founded in 1986 in Paris by Laurent Néel and Salim Edde, who were soon followed by Salim’s three brothers and his brother-in-law. Today, the company employs a multi-national force of over 2,200 employees worldwide. Its main office is in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and it has 18 global offices in cities such as

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Murex has customers located in 70 countries. Murex’s platform, MX.3, is used by

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

s, asset managers,

pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income. Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and priva ...

s and

insurance companies Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

. Its clients include

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

, the

National Bank of Canada The National Bank of Canada (french: Banque Nationale du Canada) is the sixth largest commercial bank in Canada. It is headquartered in Montreal, and has branches in most Canadian provinces and 2.4 million personal clients. National Bank is the ...

, the

Bank of China The Bank of China (BOC; ) is a Chinese majority state-owned commercial bank headquartered in Beijing and the fourth largest bank in the world. The Bank of China was founded in 1912 by the Republican government as China's central bank, repl ...

OCBC Bank Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited (), often known as OCBC Bank (), is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in OCBC Centre, Singapore. OCBC Bank was born out of the Great Depression thr ...

China Merchants Bank China Merchants Bank (CMB) () is a Chinese bank headquartered in Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Founded in 1987, it is the first share-holding commercial bank wholly owned by corporate legal entities in China. CMB has over five hund ...

, the

National Bank of Kuwait The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) was founded in 1952. It is the largest financial institution in Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It ...

Banorte Grupo Financiero Banorte, S.A.B. de C.V., doing business as Banorte (''Banco Mercantil del Norte'') and as Ixe, is a Mexican banking and financial services holding company with headquarters in Monterrey and Mexico City. It is one of the four large ...

and

ATB Financial ATB Financial is a financial institution and Crown corporation wholly owned by the province of Alberta, the only province in Canada with such a financial institution under its exclusive ownership. Originally established as Alberta Treasury Br ...

. Maroun Edde is the current Chief Executive Officer. In the Truffle 100 rankings for 2020, Murex was recognized as the third largest French software publisher with an announced turnover of 569 million euros.

History

In 2013,

National Australia Bank National Australia Bank (abbreviated NAB, branded nab) is one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia (colloquially referred to as "The Big Four") in terms of market capitalisation, earnings and customers. NAB was ranked 21st-la ...

undertook an overhaul of its trading operations by going live on MX.3 to support its FX trading and processing. MX.3 was first adopted in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and subsequently rolled out to its international operations on a phased basis. In 2014, the Singaporean-based bank, DBS, adopted MX.3 in its risk management operations. That same year, Murex partnered with Tullet Prebon, allowing them to use TPI data for internal model validation. Then, in November, UBS announced that it had chosen Murex’s software to replace a large part of its

fixed income Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year and repay the prin ...

platform technology, including the booking of

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

s, valuation and risk management. In the Truffle 100 rankings for 2016, Murex became the third largest French

software publisher A software publisher is a publishing company in the software industry between the developer and the distributor. In some companies, two or all three of these roles may be combined (and indeed, may reside in a single person, especially in the case o ...

with an announced turnover of 460 million euros. In 2017, China Merchants Bank (CMB) went live on Murex’s MX.3 trading platform to improve the technology at its

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

operations, following the bank becoming one of the first Chinese financial institutions to join the R3

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

consortium. Murex took part in the pilot project for Teen Turn in Dublin, an initiative that seeks to create a talent pipeline for women in

science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...

(STEM). Murex announced its partnership with Microsoft, bringing MX.3 into the cloud with certification on Microsoft Azure. ATB Financial began the first phase of moving its infrastructure and application management into the cloud with the implementation of Murex’s MX.3 Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in August 2017. In 2020, the final phase in the project was completed as ATB’s commodities desk went live. In December 2017, Murex collaborated with

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

to make MX.3 available on Amazon’s cloud platform. MX.3 on the cloud can be used for applications such as development and testing, running production processes, disaster recovery and for accessing cloud-based managed services. In 2018,

Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, England. ...

went live on MX.3 to replace its legacy system and secure wider funding sources, review pricing rules and implement tighter risk, liquidity and collateral controls. Murex partnered on the project with Sapient Global Markets who delivered testing automation to fast-track deployments. Italy-based

Banca IMI Banca IMI is a subsidiary of Intesa Sanpaolo which is specialized in investment banking and capital markets. The bank can trace its origins to the Istituto Mobiliare Italiano. IMI merged with Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino to form Sanpaolo I ...

, a subsidiary of

Intesa Sanpaolo Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. is an Italian international banking group. It is Italy's largest bank by total assets and the world's 27th largest. It was formed through the merger of Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI in 2007, but has a corporate identity s ...

, migrated its equity derivatives business to MX.3 as part of a technology update for its capital markets business. Bankdata, a Danish banking IT provider, announced it was expanding its use of MX.3 to its remaining member banks following implementation with

Jyske Bank Jyske Bank A/S is the third largest Denmark, Danish bank in terms of market share. The headquarters are located in Silkeborg, and the bank has 98 branches in Denmark, and a single one in Germany (Hamburg). It is the second-largest bank to be lis ...

and

Sydbank Sydbank A/S is one of Denmark's largest full service banks headquartered in Aabenraa. Sydbank was founded in 1970 with the merger of four local banks based in Southern Jutland: Den Nordslesvigske Folkebank (Aabenraa); Graasten Bank (Gråsten); Fo ...

. MX.3 replaces legacy systems, providing one platform covering the whole trade lifecycle and centralizing risk calculation, trading and settlement data for real-time processing. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) partnered with Murex to support reporting requirements under the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR). Murex’s SFTR solution will link to DTCC’s Global Trade Repository to enable simplified reporting and lower implementation costs. In 2019, Banorte, Mexico's second largest investment bank, announced it was extending its use of MX.3 for some of its main risk and compliance functions. MX.3 will enable Banorte to automate and digitize its operations, including counterparty risk, derivatives valuation adjustment (

XVA An X-Value Adjustment (XVA, xVA) is an umbrella term referring to a number of different “valuation adjustments” that banks must make when assessing the value of derivative contracts that they have entered into. The purpose of these is twofold: ...

) and

collateral management Collateral has been used for hundreds of years to provide security against the possibility of payment default by the opposing party in a trade. Collateral management began in the 1980s, with Bankers Trust and Salomon Brothers taking collateral again ...

. Ping An Bank, a Chinese joint-stock commercial bank, adopted Murex’s MX.3 platform in 2019. The bank’s aim was to close the gap between front and back office, enabling its expansion into new areas. In 2020, Thai bank Krungsri (

Bank of Ayudhya Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited, branded and commonly referred to as Krungsri (sometimes stylized as krungsri), is the fifth largest bank in Thailand in terms of assets, loans, and deposits. Through its branches and service outlets are in ...

) implemented Murex’s IT platform MX.3 to simplify its existing IT infrastructure and improve regulatory reporting transparency. In 2020, Murex facilitated the first overnight indexed swap derivatives transaction based on the new Thai reference rate THOR for

Kasikornbank Kasikornbank ( th, ธนาคารกสิกรไทย, , Teochew: Khai-thài Ngîng-hâng, , stylised in all caps), often stylised as KBank and formerly known as the Thai Farmers Bank is a banking group in Thailand. KBank was establishe ...

. Ahead of the Libor transition, a global effort to reform interest rate benchmarks, Murex is working with its clients to prepare their IT systems. In 2021, Murex adds physical presence in Cyprus to bolster its regional footprint in the Europe-Middle East-Africa region. In April 2022, Murex announced a partnership deal with Polish based financial institution Pekao. The deal included Murex to aid in the technological transformation of Pekao and to implement its MX.3 platform.

Corporate affairs and culture

Murex is involved in the Teen Turn program, an initiative that is seeking to create a talent pipeline for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

). In 2017 Murex sponsored Teen Turn’s pilot project, hosting a two-week work placement at their offices in Dublin where female employees acted as mentors for local students. In 2018, Murex again sponsored Teen Turn, supporting an event for mentors and women in technology in Dublin. Murex was ranked tenth for companies of 500 to 999 employees in the Les Echos Happy at Work survey of 2018. Murex was recognized in the Top 5 best employers to work for in France in Glassdoor’s 2020 and 2021 Employee Choice Awards.

References

{{reflist Banking software companies Companies based in Paris Financial software Financial software companies Financial technology companies Software companies of France French brands 1986 establishments in France Companies established in 1986