Further, buy-side forum participants agreed that efficient pre-matching will be a critical part of ensuring timely settlement. This was supported by the sell-side firm participating in the forum, which stated that 70% of firms’ efforts should be spent on getting the pre-matching process streamlined. This would entail agreeing on the economic details of a trade at the stage of trade affirmation. Errors and penalties To clarify, if there are discrepancies in trade confirmation details between market participants—because manual processing is extremely error prone—it could delay the settlement of the trade, which will then incur a penalty. As a result, firms should definitively agree on the terms of the trade in an automated and standardised fashion before the trade flows further downstream for settlement. Buy-side participants agreed that automated exception management solutions – whereby a problem trade is highlighted as early as possible for it to be rectified quickly - will be essential in achieving timely settlement.