Bank of Thailand achieves 90% increase in straight-through processing from portfolio construction to accounting

As Thailand's central bank, the Bank of Thailand is responsible for maintaining financial stability, conducting monetary policy, and overseeing the country's foreign exchange reserves of over USD 250 billion. To support the efficient management of these critical national assets, the bank needed a trusted partner that could streamline operations, reduce operational risk, and provide the scalability to handle growing transaction volumes and investment complexity.

Business case

The Bank of Thailand encountered constraints in broadening its investment universe, which posed challenges to optimizing reserve management. Managing foreign exchange reserves is fundamental to the bank's mission of maintaining financial stability, cushioning against external shocks while ensuring smooth execution of monetary and exchange rate policies.

Key drivers for transformation included:

• Restricted investment flexibility: The existing infrastructure limited the bank's ability to expand into new asset classes and more complex instruments, constraining investment opportunities for portfolio managers as strategies evolved to include sophisticated derivatives.
• Fragmented systems and data silos: Multiple legacy systems created operational inefficiencies and increased the risk of errors across front, middle, and back-office functions.
• Limited straight-through processing: Manual workflows throughout the investment lifecycle introduced operational risk and delayed transaction processing. The lack of automation constrained the bank's ability to handle growing transaction volumes efficiently.
• Operational risk management: As reserves grew over USD 200 billion, the bank needed stronger controls, improved governance, and enhanced risk management capabilities to safeguard Thailand's financial assets.

"Managing a portfolio of this scale with multiple disparate systems created operational inefficiencies and increased risk," explains Rattanawilai Dumrongrungrueng, Head of Dealing Room System Support Team, Bank of Thailand. 

Solution

After a thorough due diligence process, the Bank of Thailand selected SimCorp to replace four legacy systems with a unified, front-to-back investment management platform. The solution was delivered on time and on budget, transforming the bank's operational capabilities while maintaining business continuity throughout the transition.

SimCorp supports the bank's foreign exchange reserve management, providing comprehensive coverage across the entire investment lifecycle: from portfolio construction and risk management through to compliance, settlement, and accounting.

Built on SimCorp's Investment Book of Record (IBOR), the solution enables high straight-through processing rates for investment transactions. With SimCorp as the foundation, the bank now has a scalable infrastructure to support future investment management needs.

Business benefits

The Bank of Thailand's implementation has delivered substantial operational improvements and positioned the bank as a leader in central bank reserve management. In June 2025, the bank was recognized with the prestigious Central Bank of the Year 2025 award by Central Banking Publications for its outstanding achievements in monetary policy implementation, financial supervision, and organizational management. This recognition reflects the bank's operational excellence, a journey strengthened by the transformation of its reserve management infrastructure with SimCorp.

Enhanced portfolio flexibility and investment capabilities

Since go-live, the Bank of Thailand has expanded its investment from plain-vanilla to more complex instruments. The bank now manages cleared interest rate swaps and multiple types of derivatives including options, providing greater investment flexibility for portfolio managers while reducing operational costs.

Dramatic operational efficiency gains

The unified platform transformed daily operations with measurable results:

• 90% increase in straight-through processing rates dramatically reducing manual intervention and accelerating transaction processing from front-office portfolio construction through to back-office settlement and accounting.
• Consolidated accounting general ledger using a unified data layer with IBOR and integrated accounting, enabling real-time reconciliation and eliminating time-consuming manual processes.
• 50% increase in rules automation significantly speeding up pre-trade compliance checks.
• 70% reduction in time spent on reporting with increased frequency of daily reconciliations providing more timely insights for decision-making.

The most recent example is collateral management operation; Previously the collateral processes weren't so automated, and the team was always behind the deadline by weeks, causing a delay in the downstream process such as accounting's book closing. Now that the process is fully automated, in addition to the benefit of not causing the delay for other streams, it is very easy to spot the breaks and instantly notify the relevant parties.

Rattanawilai Dumrongrungrueng, Head of Dealing Room System Support Team, Bank of Thailand

Reduced operational risk and strengthened governance

Highly automated workflows have minimized human error risk and reduced operational risk through streamlined processes. The bank now has enhanced governance and control through consolidated data and automated compliance checks, providing better oversight of reserve operations as transaction volumes have grown.

"Being able to ease the users' operational burden is what we consider our highest achievement," emphasizes Dumrongrungrueng.

Strategic positioning for the future

With a solid foundation in place, the Bank of Thailand continues to enhance its capabilities. The experience gained since go-live has enabled the bank to identify new opportunities for automation and process improvement. As the bank's investment strategies evolve and portfolio complexity grows, the flexible platform supports continued expansion into new asset classes and investment opportunities, ensuring the bank remains well-positioned to adapt to changing market conditions and maintain its leadership in central bank reserve management.