Tamale’s Research Management Solution (RMS) provides research aggregation to make the job of investment professionals easier by automating the information compilation process and sorting out the information overload issue. RMS is a proven solution with an open architecture. The judges particularly appreciated that Tamale is using an open-source approach, even though it has three patents for its solution. Tamale was viewed as not only an innovative pioneer in this space, but also as having achieved a critical mass with 70 clients.
“Tamale has been adopted because we are the first industry solution that is designed to integrate directly with the research and investment decision-making work flow of investment professionals,” says Mark Rice, CEO of Tamale.
“Information is the life blood of fundamentally driven funds but the sheer volume is overwhelming. Work-flow efficiency is the key to staying on top of this flood of information and the core value proposition of Tamale. The RMS space is young but it is increasingly being viewed as mission critical for the fund industry. Our goal is to continue to define the space as it is being adopted more broadly and to work in partnership with our clients to deliver solutions that help them make better investment decisions.”
Commended: Tradeweb. Tradeweb launched in June 2006 and has grown its number of participants remarkably, from six dealers and 35 institutions to 12 dealers and 330 institutions within the first eight months.
Commended: SuperDerivatives. SuperDerivatives simplified the workflow from sales through to the traders for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, which are incredibly hard to pin down in terms of the pricing from sales through to the implementation (for example, sales price things all day long but rarely send that information through to traders and the information traders receive is often confusing).
Back-Office Innovation Winner:
Wall Street Systems with e-Operations
The back office remains an underinvested area and there is rarely anything new that shows resolution of enormous problems for the industry. That is why this year’s winner gets the nod, because it has addressed core issues, such as client onboarding, payment netting and splitting, and cash reconciliation. Wall Street Systems’ e-Operations was also a new development deployed in 2006 with proven usage with banks such as Scotia Capital and Citizens Bank.
Wall Street Systems president and CEO Joel Mandelbaum says: “The launch of our e-Operations platform was a deliberate attempt to switch the emphasis of research and development [R&D] from the ubiquitous trade execution sites to a platform whose focus was on day-to-day operations, efficiency and transparency. We have created an efficient channel to allow for the shift of non-straight through processing [STP] effort from the sell side to the buy side. The buy side has more control over its account management via improved sell-side engagement. This has been a win-win [situation] for both the banks and their clients.”
Commended: Comada with MAT. The MAT solution brings order to chaos by sorting out the fragmented, non-standardised portfolio management issues in funds of hedge funds (FoHF). It also offers an ASP approach in a market that does not have hi-tech departments but typically are firms with staff numbers averaging about 20 in total in the FoHF manager’s office. By gradually extending the approach to full STP, Comada is generating an innovative approach to an unstructured marketplace with MAT.
Algorithmic Trading Innovation Winner:
Skyler Technology with Skyler C3 Solutions
Skyler’s entry is US-based and strong on order liquidity management. The liquidity management server not only uses an in-memory database for the order book, which is a key issue, but also has been benchmarked with sustained stream input rates of more than 235,000 messages per second with seven-10 microsecond latency while maintaining the books for 18,000 instruments at full depth in real time. Key to this award was a statement from Skyler’s leading endorser, NYFIX: “The Skyler C3 Order Book provides aggregation across multiple venues and maintains the full depth and breadth of the order book in real time. We have benchmarked the system and it has yielded impressively positive results. It gives us sufficient head room and flexibility to keep pace with the drastically increasing quote and order book data balances, and easy adaptation to additional liquidity pools or changing regulatory requirements.”
Steve Cooper, CEO at Skyler Technology, says: “Skyler’s success is a result of our strong focus on financial services’ specific needs and the superior data processing performance and capabilities our Skyler C3 Solutions deliver.
“Specifically in the area of algorithmic trading, sourcing liquidity is becoming the main challenge. The drivers are the increasing number of liquidity pools, the upcoming dark pools, the fierce compliance regulations and the soaring stream input rates. Our C3 Liquidity Discovery Solution is able to provide deeper and faster insights into fragmented liquidity pools. For our customers this means better prices and higher fill rates, and therefore superior trading efficiency.”
Commended: Progress Software with Progress Apama Dashboard Studio. Progress has continued to impress in the past 12 months with Apama remaining one of the strongest algorithmic tools available. This year, its entry is based on visualisation issues related to the Dashboard and this has been cleaned up by the Progress Apama Dashboard Studio. One of the judges states: “We focused on the Dashboard first when we generated our algorithmic strategy as you need to visualise the markets moving away from VWAP as early as possible.” This is what Progress focused on and why it is commended.
Virtualisation Innovation Winner:
PlateSpin Solutions with PowerRecon and PowerConvert
One of the biggest issues faced in virtualisation is taking a server from a physical to a virtual state. Platespin’s solutions, PowerRecon and PowerConvert, allow conversion from physical to virtual, virtual to physical and all states in between. They also allow the integration of all the other visualisation technologies so if you’re trying to consolidate a variety of servers, it will give you the overarching application to join them together.
“When migrating to virtual infrastructures, organisations have tended to focus on one-time physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversions of server workloads. Organisations are beginning to embrace a much broader view of anywhere-to-anywhere workload portability – or the ability to move and rebalance workloads in any direction between physical and virtual hosts – as a key enabler of operational efficiency and business success,” says Stephen Pollack, CEO at PlateSpin.
“PlateSpin PowerConvert provides a single multipurpose solution for moving and managing all workloads in the data centre. When combined with PowerRecon, PlateSpin’s advanced workload profiling and planning software, this unique solution enables customers to address a whole host of challenges, including server consolidation, data centre relocation, hardware migration, provisioning and virtualised recovery.”
Market Data Solutions Winner:
Arcontech with Eurovision
The Eurovision solution was seen as being clearly ahead of the curve for the European regulatory shift to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) in terms of handling Chi-x feeds, it has a European best bid/offer application and an arbitrage alerter that all showed innovation. In particular, the fact that Thomson is showcasing Arcontech’s solution as part of its MiFID marketing initiatives, and the solution has been adopted by Lehman Brothers and others, demonstrates that this is a critical development in market data handling.
“Several factors are supporting our current success,” says Andrew Miller, managing director at Arcontech. “The proven global deployment of our systems and recognition of swift return on investment are compelling. The flexibility and scalability is ideal in fast-moving organisations where requirements are changing dynamically yet time to market remains critical. Also, our strategic emphasis on business applications, such as online and mobile trading and the MiFID ‘best execution’ area, adds value to our managed low latency middleware and is expanding our footprint with new and existing clients.”
Commended: Cicada with Composer. In terms of regulatory change, Composer was impressive. It has facilities for accessing original source data from inbound data sources along with any manual interventions as the data passes through the rules and workflow process, making it a strong contender in terms of the audit and compliance capabilities that Cicada provides.
Buy-Side Innovation Winner:
Bear Stearns with BearXplorer
Bear Stearns showed an innovative approach in this category by providing a technology to identify and quantify the influence of more than 60 macroeconomic drivers on the performance of global equities. At the time of the awards, this covered 14,000 securities in 26 markets. More than 80 asset managers and hedge funds have used the BearXplorer solution since its launch in early 2006 after a co-development with 10 large institutional buy-side global firms. The judges liked the fact that Bear Stearns took a technology and applied it to a real business problem in a collaborative way.
Commended: LatentZero with Capstone. LatentZero’s developments of Capstone added OTC derivatives in an integrated fashion to its portfolio management solution, covering both the pre-trade and post-trade environment, to provide a comprehensive approach. So many firms talk about multi-asset class, but Capstone demonstrated a capability of achieving this, as well as enhancements to order management system Minerva to provide a fully integrated order management/execution management system for the buy side.
Commended: SuperDerivatives. This online service provides a capability to manage pre-trade and post-trade activities accurately for OTC derivatives. It is designed specifically for hedge fund and asset managers on an ASP-based model, making it a worthy entry. It is one of the first online multi-asset derivatives platforms that allows for accurate pricing, analytics, trading, risk management and compliance reporting in an ASP solution and won the judges recognition for this.
Sell-side Innovation Winner:
Misys with re-architecture of Summit
Misys’s re-architecture of its Summit solution stood out in this category. Misys Summit is a sell-side multi-asset class system with specific re-architecting to meet the demands for today’s credit derivatives markets. After first developing a solution for this area in 1998, Misys redeveloped the solution to meet today’s volumes in Collateralised Debt and Credit Default Swaps by integrating the service in real-timer to the DTCC, Swapswire and Markit. The user-friendly outcome and flexible pricing influenced the judges to give Misys the award this year.
Edward Ho, executive vice-president and general manager at Misys Treasury & Capital Markets, says: “With growing volumes, new pricing models, pressures to reduce operational risk and the need for speed and automation of trade lifecycle events, banks need innovative solutions and we’re continuing to invest to improve our technologies. The integration of Misys Summit FT with a revolutionary .NET User Interface and new MUST technology has made the solution highly adaptive, incorporating coverage for the latest instruments and structures. In the future, further enhancements to our groundbreaking credit derivatives module, and new hybrids, including structured bonds and equity derivatives using the MUST technology, will drive even greater value to our customers in a highly competitive market.”
Connectivity Innovation Winner:
Yipes with FinancialConnect!
We liked this as a virtual private network (VPN) over the internet. Yipes offers ethernet-based extranet electronic trading and real-time financial data applications. Linking to 10 US-based execution venues at the time of the awards, Yipes provides strong connectivity capabilities for firms that want to trade with the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and other venues over the internet. In particular, the judges felt the service level agreement of less than five millisecond latency, 250 microseconds of jitter and 100% availability guaranteed was exceptional for an internet-based offer.
“For traders, time is money. A millisecond of trading advantage can be measured in millions of dollars,” says Yipes CEO John Scanlon. “Yipes addresses the need for low latency, scalable networks to support electronic trading by offering unique direct access and extranet solutions. Yipes’ ethernet-based global network is faster and more efficient at delivering multicast market data than traditional routed networks. The Yipes FinancialConnect! solution suite enables brokerages, buy-side firms and exchanges to access more than 65 financial exchange and trading platform destinations.
“The needs for speed and scalability will continue to increase as the industry migrates further to electronic trading. Performance improvements in trading systems, exchange consolidation, adoption of RegNMS and MiFID, proliferation of dark liquidity pools, and adoption of sub-penny pricing will cause an increase in trade volume and messages per second (mps). Traders that fail to adopt applications, systems and network technologies that improve performance and scalability will find themselves losing to more nimble competitors.”
Cross-Asset Class Trading Innovation Winner:
MORS Software with Middle Office Reporting System
MORS demonstrated true multi-asset class trading capabilities by not only dealing in deposits, loans, futures, FRAs, FRNs, IR swaps, IR options, FX spot/forwards, FX swaps and FX options, but also showing true real-time capabilities. The judges were impressed by the fact that MORS’ Middle Office Reporting System could deal with real-time observations of trading profit and loss figures, market risks and counterparty risks in a true multi-delta solution. The system achieves this by consistently calculating profit and loss, market risks and counterparty risks in real time for all levels of the portfolio, right down to a single deal and cash flow, and has demonstrated this with several Scandinavian financial clients including Svenska Handelsbanken and Swedbank.
Commended: Fidessa with Fidessa Trading Platform. Fidessa has typically been thought of as a front-office equities solutions firm, but has been working hard to extend out of this space into true multi-asset class capabilities. The judges were pleased therefore to see that it had added exchange-traded derivatives in 2006 and has proven these capabilities with new clients Insinger de Beaufort and ADM Investor Services International Ltd.
Best Execution Innovation Winner:
Arcontech with the EBBO application
Arcontech is making a strong play in supporting MiFID with its CityVision ‘EuroVision’ MiFID Suite. It has developed specific capabilities to support best execution and the judges were impressed with the inclusion of the EBBO (European best bid/offer) application. The application provides the capability to receive data from regulated markets, multilateral trading facilities and systematic internalisers to build depth for each venue and then combine this data with a pan-European order book to achieve the EBBO. For this reason, the judges gave Arcontech the award for best execution.
Custodial and Security Services Innovation Winner:
JPMorgan for CommanD
JPMorgan was the first to create a full-service outsourced derivatives collateral management solution, in conjunction with a number of suppliers. The series covers all of the post-trade functions, including OTC derivatives, valuations, credit support annex management, reconciliations, collateral custody and liquidity management. The judges were impressed that this had been delivered in support of 20 of the world’s largest broker-dealers in more than 50 of the largest financial institutions, representing more than $1000bn in collateral assets. In particular, the judges thought it was noteworthy that, by partnering with suppliers, JPMorgan de-risked the whole project.
