“You need to be able to literally drill down to the dollar… The client wants to know not only what you made for them but also how you made it.” Controller at a Hedge Fund based on the West Coast of the USA.
AlphaCert was launched into a tumultuous global market being buffeted by the storms of massive post financial crisis upheaval and unprecedented technological advances. Before its launch we conducted in-depth interviews into the concerns of investment managers. Common themes emerged. Times have changed following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Not only do clients and regulators expect see-through methodology and fees but technology advances mean that they demand information be delivered pronto.
AlphaCert is a data management platform for the investment management sector, addressing the needs of today’s investment manager. Its development has not been overnight though – the pot has been simmering away for the last seven years. AlphaCert was developed in response to the needs of several investment management clients of ClearPoint, the software engineering company I founded with my business partner Bain Hollister.
In 2008 ClearPoint started working with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The fund had recognised that their current IT platform would not be able to grow with the needs of the business. They needed to eliminate the manual, double handling of data and be able to load multiple data sources into a single source of truth. The platform we built is a deeply technical data management solution that is intuitively easy to use. Following recommendations, two other large sovereign funds approached us to produce similar platforms for their funds. We began to see the need for AlphaCert.
AlphaCert rapidly integrates multiple data streams, validates them and creates a single source of truth for investment managers. It frees up talented people to do what they do best: add value to investment portfolios. It uses the latest technology to solve the most pressing concerns of investment managers today.
The IT Director of a US State Pension Fund told us recently that in talking to his peers, “… data access and data management is our number one problem… it becomes a big time suck.” If he employed AlphaCert, he could remove manual data processing and instead place his trust in reliable, automated processing. Accurate data could be accessed and reported on, as and when needed, as often as required.
The Private Investment Manager at a West Coast-based fund told us that, “Nothing plugs and plays because every firm has unique needs.” He was concerned about the costs of bespoke systems. Luckily for him there is a solution. AlphaCert provides a technology base with tailor-made modules that are layered on top. This makes a made-to-measure platform less costly to produce and integrate with his legacy systems. We call it innovation balanced by pragmatism.
With AlphaCert, the business benefits are clear:
- Save valuable time for highly paid operations and investment managers.
- Maintain the focus on delivering portfolio returns instead of time-wasting administration.
- Reduce business risk by addressing issues of data quality.
- Spend more time on core business with swift, timely and accurate reporting on mandatory regulation and compliance requirements.
In the next few weeks, I’m going to tell you more about how we developed AlphaCert and some of the hefty issues it can solve for customers. And because everything we do is supported by what we know of the global marketplace, I’ll share our knowledge of that too. Stay tuned.