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INFORM is The Bank of New York Mellon’s Internet-based information delivery and transaction processing system for the institutional investment community. It provides a single point of entry to the different products and services offered by the Bank. INFORM allows clients to retrieve various forms of reporting, as well as to transmit instructions to the Bank through their internet browser, without having to maintain additional software.
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INFORM consists of the following main features:
Instruction Capture
INFORM’s Instruction Capture capability allows you to enter securities trades that have been executed worldwide. Instruction Capture accepts these trades, validates them against INFORM’s robust reference database and makes them available for settlement. As an alternative, using the system’s File Import feature, you can program your trade entry systems to generate files of instructions that can easily be imported into INFORM Instruction Capture. In addition, INFORM allows you to enter foreign exchange information that can be automatically contracted out to The Bank of New York Mellon’s FX department, or use instructions from a third party FX instruction. Both of these types of FX instructions are automatically linked to the securities trade.
Real–Time Information Processing
In today’s fast moving market settlements, INFORM is your information delivery vehicle to all worldwide markets in real-time. As trade settlements are automatically affecting your portfolio, INFORM is notified and that information is available to you through our real-time reporting capability. Also, when a trade instruction is entered, it is automatically posted to our security movement and control database. There is no need for subsequent uploading of that trade instruction.
Up-To-Date Industry and Market Information
INFORM provides its user community with the most recent information on industry events and market practices worldwide. When you want to know the latest in the over 100 markets in which The Bank of New York Mellon conducts business, INFORM is your solution. Industry and market information is made available through INFORM’s Country Profiles. This information is constantly updated by our staff, so that you can manage your risk by understanding what recent events are affecting the market.
Portfolio Information Delivery
INFORM provides a single source for information on your managed portfolios. INFORM supplies this information many ways, each with the emphasis on usability. INFORM contains standard reports, but for those who prefer customization, INFORM also offers a robust set of tools that allow for extensive data mining (filtering and sorting) against a repository of data.
Client-Controlled Access
INFORM empowers you to determine INFORM usage based on their operational needs. By setting up User Groups, you can define specific access parameters, where each group has a unique set of capabilities and can access a pre-defined set of report groups. This feature enables you to adapt INFORM to your processing environments. It also allows you to assign an INFORM site administrator, who can reset user passwords within your organization.
Archived Information
INFORM has a user friendly archive capability that allows you to create and save reports into a customized archive library. These reports are easily accessible and are typically used to reference past activity for purposes of clarification and reconciliation.
Automatically Scheduled Information Delivery
Using INFORM’s highly sophisticated Scheduler feature, you can request information to be delivered at a specific time directly to your computer or your organization’s application server. This feature can be used worldwide to take full advantage of INFORM’s 24-hour processing window. It is extremely valuable for clients investing in global markets who want to know the status of their activity at beginning of their processing day. You do not need to actually access INFORM, as all requested information is delivered within a local environment in report or data format, ready to be processed.
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Once your organization subscribes to INFORM and the appropriate account information is established on INFORM, you can gain access completely through the Setup function. Setup is controlled by your designated INFORM site administrator, who defines users, assigns default passwords, and determines the availability of INFORM functions. In addition, the site administrator can categorize account and report groups.
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To access INFORM’s suite of services, you need the following standard hardware and software:
- Pentium PC 500 Mhz
- 128MB RAM Memory (256 MB preferrably)
- 1024 x 768 screen resolution with at least 2 MB Video Memory
- Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP
- Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 – 6.0
- Broadband Internet Connection/Modem Dialup
- Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0.5, 6.0, 7.0
- No plugins
- 128 Bit encryption required
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It is recommended that you use Internet Explorer 5.5 and above to access INFORM.
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Along with being the information delivery vehicle for institutional investors, INFORM is your access point for automated interfaces with industry used products in the financial marketplace. INFORM can be used to automatically send data from our institutional investor databases to a wide range of accounting and performance systems. As a result of these automated interfaces, many of our clients can fully automate reconciliation of assets, transactions and cash between Bank of New York Mellon data and their own investment, trust and performance system applications.
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Providing a secured environment to ensure privacy of your records is a paramount design consideration of INFORM. We recognize that your portfolio deserves the highest level of security that technology can provide, and employ the most secure online environment available in the industry. This consists of 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which maintains the highest encryption standards throughout INFORM to protect the information on your account.
INFORM provides secure communication and has a valid web certificate. Simply stated, a web certificate is a digital document that has unique codes to identify the holder of the certificate to the person accessing the site. Valid certification permits secure communication between a client and a server (e.g., between a customer’s browser and INFORM) or two servers (any servers who want to talk securely amongst themselves).
A web certificate functions as follows:
- Whenever someone transacts with a secure website (INFORM), their browser (or server) authenticates the identity of the website using the web certificate.
- If the site’s certificate is not valid, a warning is issued to the user, otherwise the web certificate creates an SSL (Secure Server Layer) session and encrypts any information exchanged during that session. This ensures that your User ID is encrypted, so that it cannot be read or intercepted by other people. The certificate is a statement guaranteeing the security of this website.
Before you can start sending encrypted or digitally signed information, you must obtain a certificate and set up your browser to use it. When you visit a secure website, such as INFORM, the site automatically sends you its certificate.
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Our browser-based platform is available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week. The INFORM component is available from Sunday 3:00 p.m. to Saturday 3:00 p.m. Standard maintenance is performed from Saturday 3:00 p.m. to Sunday 3:00 p.m.
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Graphing capabilities are available in INFORMPerformance, where you can create reports with graphics for both attribution and query results, e.g., query results relating to Cumulative Returns, Dollar Growth, Segment Returns and Segment Weights.
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Clients can control password resets at their own site using local security administrators, independent of The Bank of New York Mellon. This is done by using INFORM’s sophisticated Setup module. Upon Setup, clients identify security administrators at their site, who have the authorization to assign users, relate users to user groups, and relate user groups to INFORM reports and services. Beyond this, security administrators are authorized to reset User Passwords. If a security administrator requires password reset, the Bank’s help desk should be contacted, and with the proper authentication, the security administrator password can be reset.
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Using INFORM, clients have access to our unique Country Profiles and News information service. Country Profiles provides up to the minute information about the various markets in The Bank of New York Mellon’s global network. The information covers topics of interest, such as subcustodian profiles, new market announcements, account opening procedures, and the Bank’s country specialist contacts. The information is geared toward clients who are, or who plan to be, actively involved in those markets. INFORM’s News service offers on-line viewing of general information regarding The Bank of New York Mellon, such as press releases and product announcements.
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Through INFORM’s client-controlled Setup module, you can assign any combination of report and account groups within the universe of your accounts and reports, without the intervention of The Bank of New York Mellon. You can create custom account groups and associate those account groups to specific reports or report groups.
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