Pirum is a UK-based financial services technology vendor, headquartered in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. Pirum was co-founded in 2000 as a

securities lending In finance, securities lending or stock lending refers to the lending of securities by one party to another. The terms of the loan will be governed by a "Securities Lending Agreement", which requires that the borrower provides the lender with c ...

post trade vendor, specializing initially in the

reconciliation Reconciliation or reconcile may refer to: Accounting * Reconciliation (accounting) Arts, entertainment, and media Sculpture * ''Reconciliation'' (Josefina de Vasconcellos sculpture), a sculpture by Josefina de Vasconcellos in Coventry Cathedra ...

of open and pending

trades and billing. Over the years, the product offering has expanding into

collateral Collateral may refer to: Business and finance * Collateral (finance), a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan * Marketing collateral, in marketing and sales Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Collate ...

services and other areas that required

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

. Pirum's client base includes over 100

financial institution Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial inst ...

s including

investment banks Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...

, asset managers, pension funds,

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 ...

and Agent Lenders (companies who lend assets on behalf of other parties).

History

Prior to 2000,

was a growing business with most financial service employees based onshore (ie. in North America, UK, Europe, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Australia etc). In 2000, demand started to arise for automation and standardisation amongst those financial institutions. In June 2000, Pirum Systems was founded in London by Rupert Perry and Jeff Armstrong with the objective of providing automated internet-based solutions for these market participants, through providing a secure

service for both open

trades and for their monthly billing. Pirum is the latin name for pear tree and was used as the company name because PEAR derives from the names of Pirum's founders: Rupert PErry and Jeff ARmstrong.

Services

Pirum provides the following automation services to its clients: Core * Open and pending trade compare * Custody reconciliations * Billing comparison * Billing delivery Pirum Live *

Mark to market Mark-to-market (MTM or M2M) or fair value accounting is accounting for the "fair value" of an asset or liability based on the current market price, or the price for similar assets and liabilities, or based on another objectively assessed "fair" ...

functionality *

Collateral Collateral may refer to: Business and finance * Collateral (finance), a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan * Marketing collateral, in marketing and sales Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Collate ...

and RQV services, with links to BNY Mellon,

JP Morgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the w ...

and

Euroclear Euroclear is a Belgium-based financial services company that specializes in the settlement of securities transactions, as well as the safekeeping and asset servicing of these securities. It was founded in 1968 as part of J.P. Morgan & Co. to settl ...

Triparties * Returns automation * CCP functionality with

Eurex Eurex Exchange is an international exchange which primarily offers trading in European based derivatives. It is the largest European futures and options market. The products traded on this exchange vary from German and Swiss debt instruments to E ...

* Data services with

Markit Markit Ltd. was a British financial information and services company with over 4,000 employees, founded in 2003 as an independent source of credit derivative pricing. The company provides independent data, trade processing of derivatives, fo ...

* Cash prepay reconciliations The real-time Live services are used by more than 30 of Pirum's clients.

Involvement in the global industry

Pirum are an associate member of the

International Securities Lending Association The International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) is an industry association representing the common interests of securities lending and financing market participants across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Its geographically diverse membersh ...

(ISLA), and regularly attend and/or sponsor industry events.

New ownership

In February 2015, Five Arrows Principal Investments, the mid-market private equity fund backed by the

Rothschild Group Rothschild & Co is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company, and the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the French and British branches of the Rothschild family. The banking business o ...

, and Camwell Management LLP agreed to acquire an interest in Pirum. The two co-founders of Pirum, Rupert Perry and Jeff Armstrong, remained with Pirum as shareholders, whilst

Donal Smith Donal Ian Brice Smith (4 February 1934 – 27 September 2023) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner and English literature academic. He represented his country at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and 1960 Olympic Games, and ...

joined Pirum's board of directors as non-executive chairman, and Rajen Sheth became CEO.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Financial services companies established in 2000 Securities (finance) Financial services companies based in the City of London