When data is everywhere, control becomes critical
Financial institutions are managing more data than ever – from broker confirmations and custodian statements to payment feeds, ledger files, and unstructured inputs from dozens of internal and external systems. The volume is rising. The formats are multiplying. And the workflows designed to govern all of it have not kept pace. The result is a gap that costs the industry an estimated $50 billion annually in manual reconciliation and broken data remediation.
This eBook examines the pressures now reshaping post-trade operations – surging volumes, fragmented technology ecosystems, intensifying regulation, and compressed settlement cycles – and sets out why a new approach to reconciliation and exception management is no longer optional.
The four places institutions lose time, control, and confidence
The operational challenges facing back-office and operations teams are not isolated. They are systemic. Fragmented data arriving in inconsistent formats creates manual touchpoints and fragile processes. Manual workflows that cannot scale introduce bottlenecks as volumes rise. Limited visibility into exposures and root causes leaves risk management reactive rather than proactive. And unresolved breaks introduce direct financial leakage – with manual processes amplifying every delay.
The eBook maps these four interconnected pain points with precision, and explains why firms that treat reconciliation as a niche back-office function are increasingly exposed – operationally, financially, and from a regulatory standpoint.
How Air restores control to exception-heavy operations
Air is Smartstream’s AI-enabled, cloud-native data automation and intelligence platform, built specifically for post-trade environments. It operates within the Smart Reconciliations platform, unifying reconciliation and exception workflows across cash, payments, securities, digital assets, and ledgers. Air connects and consolidates data sources, standardises multi-format inputs, and improves match readiness – so reconciliations run on trusted, timely, and explainable data.
The eBook walks through Air’s five core capabilities in detail: connect and ingest, cleanse and enrich, intelligent matching, governed exceptions, and analytics and control. It explains how each capability addresses a specific operational failure point – and what institutions gain when these capabilities work together as a single, coherent control layer.
Measurable outcomes from day one
The case for modernising reconciliation is now quantifiable. Automation can reduce manual touchpoints by up to 90% and cut processing time by up to 70%, shifting operations teams from break-fix tasks toward prevention, risk management, and client-facing work. Cloud-native deployment reduces operational costs by 20-30% compared with manual reconciliation models. And for institutions facing T+1 settlement expectations and tightening regulatory scrutiny, Air’s lineage, governance, and real-time analytics provide the auditability and evidence trails that modern compliance demands.
The eBook sets out the full value framework – from faster close cycles and stronger SLA performance to lower cost-to-serve and a more resilient control environment – with reference to independent analysis on the efficiency impact of AI transformation across banking operations.
Read the short version first – or go straight to the full eBook
For a concise overview of the opportunity, the Air platform short read covers the core proposition in two minutes.
For the full picture – including the detailed use case analysis, capability breakdown, and measurable value drivers – complete the form to download the eBook: Data everywhere. Reconciliations reimagined.
