1. Overview
Over-the-counter derivatives and commodities trading is a huge market and heavily relying on master agreements agreed between the trading parties. Participating financial institutions and trading companies spend billions of dollars annually negotiating master agreements because the process is heavily fragmented and inefficient due to negotiations based on MS Word documents shared via e-Mail between the parties involved.
By using "Framesoft Online Negotiation (FON)" the complete preparation & negotiation process is simplified, streamlined, faster and more transparent. FON is a platform for electronically assembling, generating, reviewing, and negotiating (master) agreements.
FON is completely integrated in Framesoft Contract Repository (FCR) supporting a seamless interaction with any agreement request workflow & agreement type specific data points. For interaction with counterparties involved in a negotiation a FON satellite can be established in a de-militarized zone (DMZ) or application service center. Alternatively, FON is also offered as Software as a Service (SaaS) via internet.
Using FON will offer a much easier and consistent way to electronically assemble, generate and negotiate contracts as well as extract crucial information from final contracts to feed internal risk, collateral, and regulatory reporting systems. FON is scalable to any type of contract and our vision is to be the industry leading platform for negotiating commercial contracts.
2. Key Benefits
- FON is integrated in Framesoft Contract Repository (FCR) regarding:
- Agreement Type Setup
- Agreement Request Workflows
- Agreement Document Assembly
- Integration of third-party agreements
- Document Generation
- Agreement Review & Negotiation
- Framesoft Document Intelligence (FAI)
- Event & Lifecycle Management
- Reporting & Analysis
- FON simplifies the administration, enhances the transparency as well as speeds up the negotiation process between the negotiation parties
- All documents related to the negotiation are managed centrally in FON; this means no inconsistencies, breaks or version conflicts in any negotiation
- Subscribers to FON simply invite counterparties to a negotiation. The invited counterparties do not have to be subscribers; all they need is internet access
- FON Subscribers can upload and maintain their own library of draft agreements, annexes, and schedules in FON
- Contract data items remain an integral part of the contract throughout the complete negotiation
- The integrated document editor "Framesoft Docs" safeguards data items to ensure data integrity and seamless backward reconciliation into corporate systems & speeds up a negotiation by supporting parallel editing of distinct clauses of any agreement
- Full audit trail of the negotiation process
- Optimization of negotiation via workflow control
- Any number of parties may be involved in a negotiation. New parties may be added whenever required
- Each negotiation can consist of any number of documents
- Secure access to contracts; both parties access a single version of the contract via a high security link using tunnelling and encryption
3. Integration in FCR
- Automatic Draft Document Generation - any document generation can be embedded in a workflow, initiated manually, or driven via external action.
- Document Assembly (via FDA) - based on configuration of a template documents and its structures via Framesoft Document Assembly (FDA).
- Master Agreement Review & Negotiation Workflow - participants can be invited, reviews and negotiations can be conducted based on the automatically generated draft(s). FON takes care of “Merge Handling“ of updates pushed into a currently negotiated agreement via
- new standard clause versions,
- non-standard clauses approved
- data point updates
- individual updates of clause text in the reviewed / negotiated document
- Automated generation of new agreements / amendments triggered by a standard clause or data point update
- Messenger component - shows all activities performed & allows a direct communication (chat) between the parties involved
- Counterparties are invited and only require a Web browser (e.g., Google Chrome or MS Edge) to participate
- Agreement Signing via electronic signatures
- Archiving - finalized contracts are archived in a document management system
- Reconciliation - the contract data point changes resulting from the negotiation are reconciled with FCR
- Third-Party Agreements - in case a third party agreement (received by counterparty) shall be negotiated, it is imported via agreement request workflow and agreement clauses are recognized automatically & compared against identified similar clauses in the library via Framesoft Document Intelligence (FAI).
- "Framesoft Document Intelligence (FAI)" module integrated in FON & FCR supporting
- (Agreement) clause compare / evaluations
- Clause categorizations and classification
- Data point detection / extraction / reconciliation
- Agreement Event & Lifecycle Management module offering:
- Searching in clause repository and execution copies
- Searching for agreements containing a selected clause
- Searching for agreements containing selected (Sub-) documents / sections / clause configurations
- Clause Versions and its usage in agreements
- What if analysis – how many generated agreements would be affected by a clause update
In addition, Framesoft Data Insight (FDI) has been fully integrated to further extend the reporting & analysis functionalities.
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