Waters Rankings 2008 - a walk on the buy side

Ok, I am a tad bit late, but it still is interesting and up to date: the Waters ranking 2008.

Being more on the buy side, I am somehow intrigued that LineData's LongView has been chosen prior to Charles River, which has dropped to third place. And then again...I am not, knowing some of the customers that are operating world wide and having seen its latest versions and the functionality offered therein. Not to mention it is making use of modern technology.

However, for a German speaking client they might need to think about building a German subsidiary.

The ‘Next Generation’ Transfer Agency Systems Review 2008

Another report from Barrington, this time they analyzed what they call "The Next Generation" TA systems. They take a look at systems that support global on-shore and off-shore funds, systems that are capable of supporting shareholder accounting in US, European, Asian and offshore environments. Hence: they had a look at all relevant TA systems that money can buy on this planet.

Here is the list of systems they reviewed:

• Bravura Solutions - RUFUS
• Envision Financial Systems - PowerAgent V 6.0
• i-flex Solutions - FLEXCUBE Investor Services
• HWM Financial Solutions - ManTra
• IFDS-Canada - iFAST Release x
• IGEFI, Ltd - MultiFonds V x
• Koger, Inc. - NTAS V 2007
• Linedata Services - MSHARE Version x
• Luna Technologies Ltd. MStar Transfer Agency System
• Mutual Fund Technologies Ltd. - GFAS
• RPM Technologies - RPM
• Riva Financial Systems Ltd. - Riva TA
• ARBES Group - ARBES TA

Systems reviewed are from the following countries:

• Australia
• Canada
• Czech Republic
• India
• Ireland
• Luxembourg
• United Kingdom
• United States

The survey sells for $7,000...

Report on Order Management Systems

This report by CAPIS (Capital Institutional Services), done in 2007, shows a nice overview of funtionalities of Order Management Systems, as well as an overview of them with a detail fact sheet per system.

The report covers systems that have a rather big footprint in the USA and is far from being complete, but the information listed per system is superb although more or less taken from the vendors fact sheets (for most of the given information).

The functionalities being expected in an order management system (from CAPIS' point of view):

• Portfolio Management (normally not an integral part of an OMS but a system group of its own)
  
• Compliance
• Trading
• Fix (considered to be a separate functionality group, in my opinion a general order routing functionality)
• Allocation
  

Systems listed are:

• Advent - Moxy
• SS&C - Antares
• Bloomberg - POMS
• Charles River - CRIMS
• Eze Castle
• Fidessa - LatentZero
• INDATA
• LineData - LongView
• MacGregor - XIP
• Sungard - Asset Arena (formerly known as Decalog)
  

Aquin Components stellt LawCard® für InvG 2008 vor

MIG21, wohl klarer Marktführer für Anlagegrenzkontrollsysteme in Deutschland, bekommt die durch die Änderungen im Gesetztestext InvG notwendig gewordenen neuen Regeln im Rahmen der neuen Version der von Aquin sogenannten "LawCard" verpasst.

Immer wieder versuchen Anbieter aus dem primär angelsächsischen Bereich (z.B. LatentZero oder LineData) in Deutschland mit Ihren Compliance-Systemen Fuß zu fassen - was Ihnen aber bestenfalls im Zusammenspiel mit den hauseigenen Order Management Systemen gelingt (für den pre- und post-trade-Check, aber nicht für den post-booking-Check), aber nicht im Rahmen einer Best-Of-Breed-Strategie.

Bei integrierten Systemen haben - in Bezug auf Anlagegrenzkontrolle - in Deutschland auch wohl nach wie vor Simcorp Dimension oder zunehmend auch ProfiData die Nase vorn.

The U.S. Fund Accounting Systems Review 2007

Barrington delivers yet again a new research on fund accounting systems in the US (the equivalent latest version of their European counterparts is dated 2003).

The following systems were reviewed:

• Eagle Investment Systems- EagleSTAR
• LineData (GIS)- MFACT
• IGEFI- MultiFonds
• SimCorp- SimCorp Dimension
• State Street Bank- PAS
• SunGard LLC- InvestOne

I just wonder why StateStreet PAS (or PAM) is on there - it is not sold to clients (as much as I know), but part of the service offering at StateStreet.

Obviously, two systems that are originated in Europe seam to be able to get enough attention to be on that exclusive but not exhaustive list: MultiFonds and Dimension. I wonder why systems like MPacs (from Phoenix Systems) or Geneva (from Advent) are not on the list (just to name two).

Fund Accounting and Transfer Agency Systems in Ireland

This survey by Deloitte (called "Fund Administration in Ireland", done 2006 and obviously released to public) shows the fund accounting and transfer agency systems in use in Ireland.

Most interesting (on page 21) is the amount of in-house fund accounting systems used: almost one third! The rest is Geneva (by Advent, a global hedge funds system as it is described), InvestOne (by Sungard), Star (by Eagle), MultiFonds FA (by IGEFI) and MFACT (in the survey said to be by Global Investment Systems, in the meantime acquired by LineData).

Two more interesting facts (re. fund accounting systems):

1st: "Advent Geneva and SunGard InvestOne are the applications of choice for those planning to change." Seems Sungard is really having an edge in the anglo-saxon dominated market (see also my post on innovation awards).

2nd: "Over 50% plan to change their fund accounting system." The reason for that may be the fact that the survey found that "Current applications appear to be relatively old, with 25% over ten years old and 50% over five years". And: "Of those planning to change, the vast majority of the investment will take place in the near future (2006/07)."

Re. transfer agency systems (summarized on page 25), the "in-house packages account for the majority (35%) of current TA systems in place. Here RUFUS (by Bravura Systems) and NTAS (by Koger) account for another 40% of the market. All current installations of these packages took place in the last 5 years." MultiFonds Transfer Agency has less than 5% market share. Unnamed systems have close to 30%.

The administrators plannings reveal that "at present no respondents expect to change their current TA system, with over 70% having changed in the last 5 years. If they were to change, 50% stated a preference for NTAS."

Seems there currently is no dynamic movement in the TA system market in Ireland - contrary to the fund accounting system market.