TXS - a company and
its history

Demand for secure collateralised refinancing in the form of coverd bonds and ABS securitisations continues to be strong. Against this background, TXS has succeeded in acquiring 6 new customers (private banks, savings banks, building societies, cooperative banks) for the TXS Pfandbrief product, 2 new customers for the SAP Funding Management product and 1 new customer for securitization services. In addition, a strategic arranger partner was won for the expansion of TXS securitization services from the current asset classes of leasing and loans to the asset class of trade receivables of corporate customers. In total, TXS will be supporting more than 105 customers with software, services and advice on refinancing by the end of 2017. In the summer of 2017 TXS founded vdpConsulting AG together with the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks and Mr. Crimmann. The aim is to bring together and gradually expand the specialist and strategic consulting business relating to real estate financing & refinancing via Pfandbriefe for the benefit of banks, building societies and other financial service providers for real estate financing. We were able to win Mr. Michael Schnüttgen and Mr. Reiner Lux as members of the Management Board, who together will build up the new specialist consulting company in an entrepreneurial manner.

Based on an ongoing apparent strategic relevance of ‘secured refinancing’ for financial services providers in Germany and Europe, TXS gains eight new customers for the product of TXS Pfandbrief and several new customers for the product of CAM (Collateral Allocation Management) and further add-on products. The changing law of the building association in late 2015 triggered the gain of numerous new TXS Pfandbrief customers. The new law permits building associations both the refinancing through the issuance of mortgage bonds and the expansion of non-collective real estate financing business, given the ongoing low interest period. In addition, TXS managed to secure three new customers for their securitisation services in Germany and one in the USA for the purchase of SAP Funding Management. Overall, TXS made the year 2016 a very successful one and with their 90 employees, they benefited from the current market situation. More than 95 customers, mainly in Germany and Austria, but also worldwide, trust the software solutions and services by TXS for ‘secured refinancing’.

Over the last 12 months, the banking community has been confronted with many new challenges that have gone towards shaping the financial sector as we know it today: a stable low interest rate environment, ever-changing financial governance, the increasing trend towards digitalization and many new financial start-up organizations, otherwise known as FinTechs. TXS has conducted a series of roundtable discussions with its clients, business partners, financial associations and other banks to ascertain what the outlook for the availability of long-term and secured funding may look like over the coming decade and beyond: What are the likely key factors affecting the global financial markets and banks’ funding strategies and activities? How significant is the German and Austrian Pfandbrief market likely to be in 2025 and beyond? Will there be a “European” Covered Bond issuance? How will digitalization and FinTechs affect the financial services marketplace? From the findings of this market study, TXS is developing its software, so that it will still remain a specialist in software and consultancy services, but providing its new and existing clients with improved long-term solutions that can meet the rigours of the new financial environment. In the last 12 months, TXS has acquired 2 new clients for its TXS Pfandbrief product, a new client for the TXS Funding Register product and a new client for our software product platform CAM (Collateral Allocation Management) and TXS KEV which will allow the client to efficiently optimize and process their loan application processes. TXS has also licenced 2 new clients in the United Kingdom and Argentina for our securitization product SAP Funding Management 3.0. Today TXS has more than 90 clients worldwide that use our products for their funding business activities.

Funding activities in 2014 by German and Austrian Banks and Financial Services Companies is very much being influenced by ECB monetary policy, prudential requirements as well as ever changing requirements by banking regulators. Resulting interdependencies on business models and ever-changing banking strategies, together with ‘rumours’ surrounding expectations of Pfandbriefbanks by banking supervisory authorities leads to a degree of uncertainty at existing and potential mortgage-lending institutions. Notwithstanding the challenging environment, some banks are taking the strategic decision to engage in Pfandbrief activities. TXS acquired 3 new customers from the German co-operative banking sector who are implementing TXS’s Pfandbrief software, TXSuite. In addition to the new implementation projects, TXS worked closely with its existing German customers to ensure that the systems were compliant with the changes to the Pfandbrief Act. By the middle of 2015, more than 50 German users of TXS’s software product will be fully compliant with the Act. In Austria, TXS won the tender to provide its covered bond structuring and processing software to Pfandbriefbank (Österreich) AG and their associated mortgage banks. Furthermore, TXS acquired 4 additional new clients in Austria. TXS also acquired 2 new clients for its securitization software, SAP Funding Management. The implementation of the securitization software will allow these companies to support their funding transactions worldwide.

The banking year 2013 was synonymous with the following terms: „Regulation, Basel III, Stress Tests, Liquidity and Credit Crunch”.  This was also the main topic of discussion for the 150 attendees at the TXS 9th Pfandbrief Forum on 5th November 2013. Following many discussions with customers, TXS evolved its Collateral Allocation Management tool to be a new and innovative product. In addition, TXS continued to expand its business geography and there have already been very constructive discussions with potential customers in Poland. It was also successful in acquiring a major Australian Investment Bank for its SAP Funding Management product. 8 new clients in Germany and Austria have implemented TXSuite to manage their business activities. 2 existing customers expanded their portfolio to include the asset classes marine and aircraft to be managed by TXSuite; and another 2 existing customers have implemented the TXS Funding Register. TXS was also successful in providing add-ons to its TXSuite product and was able to provide customers with CQM as well as a rating module. In the ever-increasing area of securitization services, TXS acquired 3 new customers. At the end of 2013, TXS had more than 80 customers spread across DACH, Western Europe, North America and Australia, covered and supported by just over 80 employees based in our Hamburg office.

TXS expands its product TXSuite to be a comprehensive platform for structuring and processing various types of secured funding. In addition to the structuring software TXS Collateral Allocation Management and the core product TXS Pfandbrief for mortgages, the system will now support Pfandbrief for marine and aviation assets (from 2013), a funding register, reporting templates (Bundesbank, Austrian Central Bank, … → from 2013), securitization etc. TXS acquired 6 new customers in 2012 for its TXS Pfandbrief product, 3 new customers for the funding register and 3 new securitization service customers. At the end of 2012, TXS had 75 customers spread across Germany, Austria and around the globe that were using TXS software solutions for the management of their secured funding business. Around 70 employees were providing dedicated services to these customers.

As a consequence of the global financial crisis, the banks funding requirements changed dramatically. Secured funding pledged by collaterals took on a more significant meaning. At the beginning of 2011, following a number of workshops and roundtable discussions with a number of their customers as well as other market players, TXS produced a paper on the topic of collateral management. The paper identified an increased need for an IT solution to address collateral structuring and management as well as a feasibility study by TXS to developing the new product. At the 7th TXS Pfandbrief Conference in early December 2011, TXS announced the launch of a new product development under the title “TXS CAM – Collateral Allocation Management“. A first release will be completed and implemented with customers in the summer of 2012. Also in 2011, TXS acquired another 10 new customers for the TXS Pfandbrief product, of which 4 came from Austria. In total we have now 48 customers across Germany and Austria who use the TXS Pfandbrief software solution.

The solution package “TXS Pfandbrief” has been tested and approved by the test user group and is now going live with all of TXS’s customers. The TXS management team has now purchased the majority shareholding of the company. This move by the management team demonstrates its commitment and support of the TXS business model and the long-term outlook. TXS acquired 7 new customers - 2 from Austria - for its Pfandbrief software solution EDR and TXS Pfandbrief. After 2 years of business development and many discussions and demos, TXS has successfully entered the Austrian market. The company also picked up 2 new customers for its RefiRegister product and one new customer which bought SAP Funding Management.

EDR is now in production with 35 customers. Its successor product TXS Pfandbrief is moving from a test product to being a GA product. The first EDR to TXS Pfandbrief migration project starts with an existing large customer and was completed successfully at the end of 2009. TXS begins the conceptual and development work for the new funding module, TXS Schiffspfandbrief. In 2009, the two separate legal entities TXS financial products GmbH and TXS GmbH are merged into TXS GmbH. The aim being to have one clear, identifiable name in the marketplace that can sell its products and continue to develop accordingly. The new TXS has 66 employees working in various business and service roles.

SAP Syndications Management is developed further and expanded as a Funding Platform (SAP FDM/SAP Funding Management) within SAP Banking. Simultaneously TXS acquired 2 further customers for its SAP Syndications Management product in Canada. The funding register is completed on schedule and successfully implemented at its first customer. Despite the beginning of the global financial crisis, 2 new customers acquire TXSuite RMBS and TXS further increases its market share with its EDR product.

agens as well as DG HYP decide to merge their business models under one brand name – TXS. TXS GmbH and TXS financial products GmbH are separate legal entities but TXS is the service provider for all aspects relating to securitization, syndication and Pfandbrief management. In order to implement the funding register, the RefiReg (Refinanzierungs-Register) was designed using EDR and TXSuite as its basis, so that a solution can be provided from a single source. The SAP Syndications Management product was sold to a large leasing company in Germany and to a bank in the Netherlands.

Following on from the TXSuite Platform-Strategy (a securitization IT-platform for various funding types), the management and owners of TXS decided to move EDR to the new TXSuite-Platform and TXS Pfandbrief would have responsibility for product development. TXS acquired 5 new customers for the EDR product. Now 29 customers have implemented EDR as the tool to manage their its secured funding structuring and processing operations.

The TXSuite Release 1 for RMBS-securitization transactions provides the marketplace with a modern and flexible IT platform for securitizations. Another 4 banks acquired the EDR product. The customer base now comprises 24 names. TXS financial products GmbH becomes SAP OEM Partner providing secured funding solutions within the SAP Banking Suite.

agens decides to expand its business model as a software provider in the area of Pfandbrief to being a software provider for securitization transactions. Consequently, DG HYP and agens founded TXS financial products GmbH. The stated aim was to make TXS financial products a leading IT solutions provider for Pfandbrief, securitization and optimizing existing funding processes. To be able to achieve this goal, the strategic decision was made to invest in the development of TXSuite as a securitization platform, with the initial focus on the structuring processes.

With the pending removal of the federal guarantor support from mid-2005, savings banks in particular must introduce new funding instruments such as the “secured” Sparkassen-Pfandbrief. In a huge development, agens acquired the SGVSH and its 11 savings banks in the state of Schleswig-Holstein as a customer for the EDR software product. The aim of the savings banks is to issue their own Pfandbrief and with the assistance of HSH-Nordbank get access to the capital markets in order to improve significantly their funding situation.

2002 was all about the 4th Financial Market Development Act and the effects on the Mortgage Bank Act. The legal requirement for companies to calculate the present value of the asset pool in addition to its nominal value was made available in Release 6 of EDR. In this regard, the close collaboration with the BaFin and the VdH (Association of German Mortgage Banks) was very helpful in developing the system requirements that would be required by customers to meet the new prudential changes. In this year also, agens secured a sixth customer for its EDR product, namely Berlin Hyp.

Postbank AG, formerly known as DSL-Bank became the fifth customer to install the EDR application system. In response to the increasing number of customers, agens set up a dedicated “EDR-Hotline”, where customers can contact for day-to-day issues, technical requirements and general queries. Customers using EDR can now benefit from a real-time and dedicated service and have at any time access to know-how transfer and latest developments to the product.

The independent implementation of EDR and clear system architecture distinctions between the core systems and interfaces has been expanded. There are now 4 clients using Release 3 of the EDR product. A wide range of existing users will benefit from the functional enhancements and necessary adjustments.

Release 2 of EDR is completed. In addition to DG HYP, 2 further mortgage banks, SHL-HYP and Warburg Hyp, acquire EDR.

Release 1 of EDR is put into production by DG HYP. Unique interfaces ensure that the EDR-Core System is updated on a daily basis with asset and liability information being provided by the bank’s own source systems.

The Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank Hamburg (DG HYP) and the consultancy firm agens Consulting GmbH (agens) which is based in Ellerau/Hamburg begin a software development project with the stated aim,  to remove the many manual processes, making them more automated and introduce an asset pool tool called elektronische Deckungsrechnung (EDR) that can be used by institutions issuing Pfandbrief paper.