In the Heart of Investment Software
Sameer Shalaby, CEO of Paladyne, recently spoke with RFPConnect to share some fresh thoughts about next generation investment management solutions.In addition to expert opinion our team summed up the latest breahthoughs in fund management and trading automation technology.
The use of trading software has long become an indispensable reality in the world of financial operations. Despite a reduction in the transaction volumes due to the recent financial downturn, demand for trading automation is still in vogue.Choosing the proper trading and investment software can be overwhelming due to the number of vendors in the marketplace. Nevertheless, providers that offer a range of functionalities in one integrated solution are rare. Paladyne Systems stands out among multiple vendors for its ability to tackle the problem of user experience and to focus both on pre- and post-trade environments.
One of the most outstanding software breakthroughs of Paladyne is the invention of Paladyne Portfolio Master™. This product offers a unique combination of order management and portfolio management functionality including electronic trading and order management, pre-/post-trade compliance, real-time PL, risk monitoring, and NAV accounting. The product is available either as a fully-hosted Application Service Provider (ASP) solution via Paladyne ASP™ or as a local installation at a client site.
Sameer Shalaby, CEO of Paladyne, pointed out two key differentiators of Paladyne Portfolio Master™, both of which benefit fund managers in this challenging economic environment and stand out in the industry against other offerings.
"Firstly, the solution combines both order management and portfolio management on one platform. This allows a firm to run their entire front- to back-office workflow with one cost-effective solution. And the second advantage is that Paladyne Portfolio Master™ is offered as a fully hosted solution using our industry-leading Paladyne ASP™. This means clients do not have to spend time and resources implementing and supporting the technology that underlies our solution. The software is also offered as a local install."
There are several elements to Paladyne's strategy and philosophy that have been fundamental to the company's success. The extended functionality of Paladyne Portfolio Master™ has allowed Paladyne to outstrip other vendors that typically offer more narrowly defined solutions. This product strategy is combined with Paladyne's philosophy of constant dialog with clients and keeping ahead of industry change.
Looking ahead at the demands of financial firms on their technology, Sameer outlines the following key trends:
"Firms today are more interested in integrated or turnkey solutions. They are less willing, than in the past, to buy and integrate solutions from multiple vendors. Another key trend is that firms are very focused on their core competencies of investing and client service. Anything outside of these priorities such as technology is increasingly seen as a distraction. Therefore we are seeing significant demand for hosted and outsourced technology offerings."
Paladyne has been ahead of this trend for a number of years. Even before the economic slowdown, Paladyne was dedicated to offering cost effective operational innovations. As such, prices for the Paladyne products are based on AUM levels and the number of users.
"Our strategy is to create relevant bundles of technology, services and data for each segment. For example we recently launched Paladyne FastStart™. This turnkey solution is aimed at start-up and growing hedge funds, and combines Paladyne Portfolio Master™ with selected operational market data, and IT support services," concludes Sameer.
Freshest Product Releases
Alternative Soft has released a new version of its software dedicated to fund of funds, banks, asset managers and pension funds investing in multi asset financial portfolios. In addition to portfolio construction, asset selection, return forecasting and index replication, the software platform now includes data integration with the Morningstarlong only database.
Jefferies Company, Inc., the global securities and investment banking firm, has become the latest fixed income market participant to adopt Axeom, Xios' inquiry management platform. The system effectively brings together the tools and information that fixed income salespeople and traders need. The local installation keeps the data secure and allows for easy customization.
Orion Advisor Services, a portfolio accounting service provider founded by and for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), launched the Orion Mobile App at Droid and Apple stores. The Orion Mobile App enables the mobile tracking of account values, performance, market commentary and includes a full reporting package. The App operates across a variety of smart phone platforms.
Together with blauMobilfunk, VoiceCash introduced the first prepaid card for electronic payment transactions in Germany—the blauworld PREPAID MasterCard—which also can be used to assign money worldwide. In cooperation with Lekkerland Deutschland the blauworld PREPAID MasterCard will be available at more than 6,000 points of sale, kiosks and fuel stations nationwide.
VeriFone Systems, Inc. and Gemalto further developed their broad strategic partnership. The partnership entails cooperative efforts in EMV chip card solutions, the handover of Gemalto's point of sale (POS) solutions business to VeriFone, and Gemalto's appointment as the preferred supplier of Machine-to-Machine wireless modules and related solutions for VeriFone payment systems.
Fiserv, Inc. launched the first solution in its series of new tools to support the Cost Basis Reporting Regulation, a provision of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. This cost basis solution allows for efficient daily import and calculation of data from books and records to provide adjusted cost basis information for reporting tax-aware strategies.
PriceMetrix launched ClientCheck, a client dashboard for advisors. At the click of a mouse, ClientCheck gives advisors a complete snapshot of each client at the household level. ClientCheck delivers all the important vitals an advisor needs to know to better service and enhance their client relationships. The dashboard is powered by an automated search and proprietary BI engine.
Banker's Dashboard has integrated its community bank management tool with Automated
Systems, Inc.'s (ASI) core Insite Banking System. With this move, the companies have made it effortless for ASI customers to take advantage of Banker's Dashboard and gain the daily visibility they need to drive their bank's financial performance. Union State Bank is the first to adopt the tool.
Deutsche Bank's Global Prime Finance business released GlobalPrime Mobile, a Prime Services mobile application for the iPad and iPhone. GlobalPrime Mobile allows clients to quickly retrieve daily margin information, and access portfolio reporting and analysis tools. The app provides a powerful set of filters to streamline report selection for mobile device users.
Visa made significant improvements to its security capabilities which will dramatically improve its ability to detect and prevent global electronic payments fraud. Upgrades to Visa's global processing platform—VisaNet—have allowed Visa to develop new fraud models that enhance the speed and accuracy with which Visa detects attempted payment card fraud and malware.
Deals of Giddy Height
Intrust Wealth Management, a division of Intrust Bank N.A., has implemented SunGard's WealthStation fund source, an investment monitoring and reporting solution in the retirement plan industry. INTRUST uses SunGard's WealthStation fund source integrated with SunGard's ReliusAdministration retirement plan recordkeeping solutionto help improve efficiencies of fund monitoring.
Indeval, Mexico's central securities depository (CSD), is using IBM to settle securities trades in seconds, reducing the risk of financial losses Rapid trade settlement has reduced the amount of cash that banks must have on hand to cover trades by 52 percent and saved Mexican banks more than $240 million in interest in 18 months. Availability of real-time net settlement mode.
Gesa Credit Union of Richland, Wash., has chosen to implement the Acumen account processing solution from Fiserv, Inc. with in-house delivery. In addition to the Acumen solution, Gesa selected Nautilus from Fiserv for enterprise content management and ATM Source Capture, Branch Source Capture and Teller Source Capture(TM).The system supports all services for business members.
CME Group is using the Calypso System from Calypso Technology Inc. to support OTC derivatives processing for clearing interest rate swaps. The Calypso Platform is one of the components of the CME Group's new offering that allows members to clear OTC derivatives trades. CME Group has also implemented the Calypso system's limits functionality for the control of intra-day risk.
SunGard has enhanced its Stream GMIpost-trade listed derivatives solution to provide processing and accounting support for CME Group cleared interest rate swaps, which it began clearing in October 2010. Stream GMI's support of CME Group interest rate swaps helps provide automated, centralized clearing, settlement and reduce counterparty risk and gain processing efficiencies.
Plus-SX,a London based stock exchange, has deployed the Progress Apama Market Surveillance and Monitoring solution accelerator from Progress Software to stay ahead of ever-changing financial regulations. By using the Apama Market Surveillance and Monitoring solution accelerator, PLUS SX can detect suspicious trading patterns and illegal activities in real-time.
Firm58, Inc., a financial management company, has been appointed to manage the online billing function for the recently launched C2 Options Exchange (C2) of CBOE Holdings, Inc. A Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of middle- and back- office technology solutions enables C2 and its market participants to access daily trade and billing details at any time via an online portal.
Two exchanges within the CEE Stock Exchange Group (CEESEG), Vienna and Ljubljana, have gone live with CameronFIX—the financial high performance Financial Information eXchange (FIX) offering from CameronTec. The CameronFIX implementation for CEESEG currently covers around 20 financial institutions for order routing and market data. The agreement was completed in Q1 2010.
BancoInternacional of Ecuador, a member of the IF Group, has licensed Surecomp's Java- based end-to-end trade finance solution. Based on the agreement, BancoInternacional will deploy allTRA®, Surecomp's Java J2EE trade finance back-office system, and allNETT®, the vendor's Java J2EE Web-based trade finance front end.allNETT® V4.0 is an enhanced bank/corporate front-end system.
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